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LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


William    Pitt,  Earl   of    Chatham.     From  the 

Portrait  by  Hoare  in  the   National   Portrait 

Gallery  .......     Frontispiece 

Sir  Robert  Walpole,     After    the    Portrait   by 

Kneller  ......  Facing  page  7 

Frederick   the    Great.     After   the   Portrait  by 

George  Van  der  Myn  ......        24, 

The   Duke    of    Newcastle.     After  the  Portrait 

by  Hoare     .  .  .  .  .         .  .  ,,40 

Sir   Edward    Hawke.       After    the    Portrait    by 

G.   Knapton.  .......        50 

Wolfe.     From   the   Portrait  by  Schaak  in   the 

National  Portrait  Gallery     .  .  .  .  ,,66 

The    Death    of    General    Wolfe.      After    the 

Painting  by  B.   West   .         .  .         .  .  ,,72 

George  hi.     After  the  Portrait  by  Ramsay  .  ,,         82 

Lord  Holland.  .  .  .  ,  .  .  ,,101 

The  Marquis  OF  Rockingham      .  .  .  ,  ,,132 

Charles    Townshend.      After    the    Portrait    by 

Reynolds       .......,,       148 

Statue    of    Lord    Mansfield    in    Westminster 

Abbey  .......,,,       162 

John  Wilkes.     From   the   Portrait  by  E.   Pine 

in  the  Guildhall ,,168 

Edmund  Burke.     After  the  Portrait  by  Reynolds 

in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery    .         .  .  ,,191 

The  Last  Scene  in  the  House  of  Lords.     After 

the    Painting    by    Copley    in    the    National 

Gallery  .......,,      201 

Lord   Chatham.     Wax   Effigy   in  Westminster 

Abbey ,,      214 


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ERRATUM. 


Page  109,  line  22, /or  "of  heresy 
read  "for  heresy." 


'V??n 


CHATHAM 


CHAPTER  I 

EARLY    LIFE 

Pitt's  birth  and  parentage — At  Eton  and  Oxford — Holds  a 
commission  in  the  Blues — Enters  Parliament — The 
position  of  parties — Pitt  joins  the  Opposition  Whigs — 
His  early  speeches — Deprived  of  his  commission  by 
Walpole — Pitt's  intimacy  with  the  Prince  of  Wales. 

"  1\  /r  R-  PITT/'  says  Lord  Shelburne  in  his 
J.VX  Autobiography,  "  was  a  younger  brother 
of  no  great  family,  as  I  believe  the  founder  of 
it  was  Governor  Pitt,  his  grandfather,  commonly 
known  by  the  name  of  Diamond  Pitt,  on  account 
of  a  vast  large  diamond  which  he  obtained  I  know 
not  how  in  the  East  Indies."  ^  The  quotation  is 
in  the  characteristic  manner  of  the  very  human 
document  from  which  it  is  taken,  but  justice  to 
our  subject  demands  its   amplification  here.     It 

^  Fitzmaurice's  Shelburne,  i.  71. 


2  CHATHAM 

was  Governor  Pitt,  indeed,  who  conferred  wealth, 
and'^with  it  a  pipasure  -of  celebrity,  upon  the 
family.  Bui  they  traced  their  origin  farther 
bpck  tatc-  the  pa«t;.  The  first  authentic  date  for 
the  foundation  of  thfelr'  foi-tunes  seems  to  be  in 
the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  when  a  certain  John  Pitt, 
their  progenitor,  was  Clerk  of  the  Exchequer. 
His  son  settled  at  Blandford  in  l662,  and  his 
grandson  was  rector  of  Blandford.  The  rector's 
son  Thomas  was  the  "  Diamond "  Pitt  above 
referred  to,  who  brought  the  family  into  promi- 
nence and  gave  them  influence  and  means.  His 
virile  and  masterful  personality  found  scope  in  a 
varied  career  of  commerce  and  administration  in 
the  Indies.  Beginning  as  an  "interloping"  mer- 
chant, he  became  finally  Governor  of  Madras  ;  and 
in  India  he  purchased  the  famous  Pitt  diamond, 
which  he  sold  to  the  Regent  Orleans  in  1717, 
making  probably  over  ;6l  00,000  by  the  transaction. 
At  home  he  utilised  his  accumulated  riches 
according  to  the  spirit  of  the  times.  He  bought 
among  other  property  the  borough  of  Old  Sarum, 
and  himself  sat  in  Parliament  as  its  representative. 
Robert,  his  eldest  son,  married  Harriet,  sister  of 
the  Irish  Earl  of  Grandison,  and  their  second  son 
was  William  Pitt,  the  future  Lord  Chatham. 

Pitt  was  bom  on  November  15,  1708,  in  the 
parish  of  St.  James's,  Westminster.  Little  is 
known  of  his  parents,  and  singularly  few  details 


EARLY  LIFE  3 

survive  of  his  own  boyhood  and  youth.  Like 
Walpole  before  him  and  Charles  James  Fox  after 
him,  he  went  to  Eton.  George  Lyttelton,  with 
whom  he  formed  a  close  friendship,  Henry  Fox, 
his  political  rival  during  the  greater  part  of  his 
career,  and  Fielding  were  among  his  schoolfellows. 
In  after-years  Pitt  confided  to  Shelburne  a  re- 
trospective view  of  Eton,  which  the  latter  em- 
bodied in  one  of  those  mordant  sentences  that 
make  his  portrait  of  Pitt,  however  palpably  dis- 
torted, the  most  readable  of  all  the  engrossing 
passages  in  his  fragment  of  autobiography. 
"  Mr.  William  Pitt,"  Shelburne  said,  ''was  by  all 
accounts  a  very  singular  character  from  the  time 
he  went  to  Eton,  where  he  was  distinguished, 
and  must  have  had  a  very  early  turn  of  observa- 
tion, by  his  telling  me,  that  his  reason  for  pre- 
ferring private  to  publick  education  was,  that  he 
scarce  observed  a  boy  who  was  not  cowed  for 
life  at  Eton ;  that  a  publick  school  might  suit  a 
boy  of  a  turbulent  disposition,  but  would  not  do 
where  there  was  any  gentleness."  ^  Whatever 
may  have  been  the  effect  of  eighteenth-century 
Eton  upon  others,  it  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have 
cowed  Pitt.  But  we  may  question  whether  his 
early  training  exercised  much  formative  influence 
on  a  character  that  was  soon  strongly  marked 
and  exceptional.  It  may  possibly  have  ac- 
^  Fitzmaurice's  Shelburne,  i.  72. 


4  CHATHAM 

centuated,  by  repulsion  rather  than  attraction, 
certain  traits  which  were  always  noticeable  in 
Pitt,  but  which  in  normal  cases  a  public  school 
education  is  supposed  to  modify  or  eradicate. 
An  intense  self- consciousness,  a  lofty  and 
exasperating  reserve,  and  an  elaboration  of 
manner  unusual  even  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
were  characteristics  that  accompanied  him 
throughout  his  life. 

From  Eton  Pitt  went  in  1727  to  Trinity 
College,  Oxford,  where  by  a  curious  irony  of 
circumstance  Lord  North,  who  was  to  be  the 
chief  agent  in  carrying  out  that  coercive 
American  policy  which  Pitt  spent  his  last  years 
in  denouncing,  followed  him  some  twenty  years 
later.  About  Pitt's  life  at  college  the  records 
are  imfortunately  silent ;  and  for  the  Oxford 
period,  as  for  that  spent  at  Eton,  we  can  in  the 
main  only  fall  back  upon  conjecture.  The  chief 
surviving  trace  of  his  industry  is  the  Latin  poem 
which  he  wrote  in  his  second  year  on  the  occasion 
of  the  death  of  George  the  Fix-st.  Lord  Macaulay 
makes  merry  over  it  in  the  first  of  his  two 
celebrated  essays  on  Chatham ;  but,  though 
conceived  according  to  the  spirit  of  the  age  in 
strains  of  extravagant  eulogy,  and  containing 
one  false  quantity,  which  we  may  hope,  with 
Macaulay,  was  the  error  of  his  printer  or 
biographer  rather  than  of  himself,  it  is  on  the 


EARLY  LIFE  5 

whole  not  perhaps  quite  so  worthless  as  the 
great  historian  would  have  us  believe.  But  Pitt 
never  attained  to  a  true  appreciation  of  the 
beauty  of  classical  poetry.  When  he  discusses 
matters  of  scholarship  and  taste  he  is  invariably 
pedantic ;  and  though  his  letters  to  his  nephew. 
Lord  Camelford,  contain  repeated  exhortations  to 
study  Homer  and  Virgil,  he  fixes  his  attention 
almost  exclusively  upon  their  moral  aspect, 
regarding  them  as  essentially  teachers  of  virtue. 
History,  ethics,  and  politics  were  subjects  more 
really  congenial  to  him.  When  he  was  himself 
arranging  for  the  education  of  his  son  William, 
he  expressed  a  special  desire  that  Thucydides 
should  be  the  first  Greek  book  read  by  the  latter 
on  going  up  to  Cambridge.  And  long  after  his 
own  studies  were  finished,  in  the  late  evening  of 
his  life,  his  thoughts  went  back  at  a  great  crisis 
to  the  Athenian  who  has  been  finely  called  "  the 
historian  of  our  common  humanity,  the  teacher 
of  abstract  political  wisdom,"  and  in  one  of  his 
American  speeches  he  paid  the  first  Congress  at 
Philadelphia  the  splendid  compliment  of  setting 
it  side  by  side  with  the  statesmen  of  antiquity 
whom  Thucydides  imperishably  depicts.^  At 
Oxford  Pitt  also  imbibed  the  philosophy  of 
Locke,  and  with  it  the  principles  of  Whiggism. 
But  his  university  career  was  never  carried  to 

1  FideY>.  188. 


6  CHATHAM 

completion.  Gout,  which  had  already  made 
itself  felt  at  Eton,  again  attacked  him,  and  he 
left  Oxford,  without  taking  a  degree,  to  make  a 
tour  for  his  health  in  France  and  Italy. 

He  was,  it  must  be  remembered,  a  younger 
son,  and  when  he  returned  from  the  Continent 
his  father  was  dead  and  his  own  means  were  but 
scanty.  He  decided  to  enter  the  army,  and 
secured  a  cornet's  commission  in  the  Blues.  It 
is  not  easy  to  conceive  of  Pitt  as  a  soldier,  but 
during  his  brief  career  of  arms  he  took  pains 
with  his  profession  as  he  did  with  everything. 
He  afterwards  told  Shelbume  that  while  he  was 
a  comet  of  horse  there  was  no  military  book 
which  he  did  not  read  through.  The  real  path 
of  his  ambition  was  now,  however,  opening  before 
him.  His  elder  brother,  who  had  inherited 
wealth  and  much  Parliamentary  interest,  was 
elected  simultaneously  for  Okehampton  and 
Old  Sarum.  He  took  his  seat  for  the  former 
borough,  and  got  Pitt  returned  as  junior 
member  for  Old  Sarum  in  1735.  Pitt's  colleague 
in  its  representation  was  Robert  Needham,  who 
had  married  his  sister  Catherine. 

When  Pitt  entered  Parliament,  Walpole  was 
drawing  towards  the  close  of  his  long  period  of 
supremacy.  Few  epochs  in  English  history  are 
superficially  less  attractive  than  the  Walpolean 
era.     Looking  back  upon  it,  our  eyes  are  fixed 


SIR    ROBERT   WALPOLE 
After  the  portrait  by  KnetUr 


EARLY  LIFE  7 

mainly  on  Parliament,  where  we  see  a  vista  of 
government  by  corruption.  Though  Walpole 
did  not  originate  Parliamentary  corruption,  he 
systematised  it ;  and  to  his  unconcealed  disbelief 
in  principle,  and  his  avowed  preference  for  retain- 
ing power  by  bribery  and  patronage  rather  than 
by  the  concentration  of  all  available  administra- 
tive ability  in  the  service  of  the  Crown,  the  low 
political  tone  of  his  time  was  largely  due.  Its 
traces  were  seen  in  the  want  of  public  spirit 
which  was  so  apparent  throughout  the  country 
during  the  Forty-five.  It  was  reflected  in  a 
latitudinarian  and  lethargic  Church,  and  in  a 
literature  which,  though  polished,  lacked  inspira- 
tion. Yet,  in  spite  of  Walpole's  obvious  short- 
comings, few  who  watch  the  course  of  English 
history  during  the  period  that  succeeded  his  fall 
can  feel  much  doubt  as  to  the  supreme  usefulness 
of  his  career.  He  restored  the  financial  equili- 
brium of  England,  and  with  light  taxation  and 
sound  credit  commerce  and  industries  steadily 
grew.  Above  all,  his  maintenance  of  the 
Hanoverian  dynasty  saved  the  country  from  the 
turmoil  attendant  on  a  disputed  succession,  and 
ensured  the  tranquil  development  of  the  Parlia- 
mentary system.  Pitt's  era  of  conquest  represents 
a  reaction  from  the  pacific  policy  of  Walpole,  but 
it  may  be  said  with  justice  that  it  would  scarcely 
have  been  possible  if  Pitt  had  not  been  able  to 


8  CHATHAM 

build  on  the  foundations  which  the  great  peace 
Minister  had  laid. 

But  Pitt,  when  he  came  into  the  House  of 
Commons  a  young  man  of  twenty-seven,  could 
hardly  be  expected  to  appraise  Walpole's  ad- 
ministration with  the  judicial  equability  which 
is  now  possible  for  us  after  a  lapse  of  nearly  two 
centuries  since  the  time  in  question.  If  he  was 
full  of  ambition,  he  was  inspired  also  by  lofty 
principles  uncommon  in  his  age.  Neither  his 
ambition  nor  his  principles  were  of  the  kind 
which  Walpole  was  accustomed  to  conciliate. 
Nor  was  Pitt  likely  to  make  advances.  The 
immense  material  progress  of  England  under 
Walpole  would  have  been  obscured  in  his  eyes 
by  the  aspect  of  Parliament  immediately  before 
him.  He  found  a  Ministry  intrenched  in  borough 
influence  and  Crown  patronage,  and  an  Opposition 
which  comprised  a  much  greater  abundance  of 
talent  than  was  to  be  found  in  the  Government, 
and  was  made  up  of  men  who,  amid  wide  differ- 
ences of  political  conviction,  were  united  in  one 
common  feeling  of  resentment  at  their  exclusion 
from  the  activities  and  the  fruits  of  office.  Its 
most  formidable  group  consisted  of  the  dis- 
contented Whigs.  They  were  led  in  the  House 
of  Commons  by  Pulteney,  a  man  of  property,  a 
brilliant  and  attractive  speaker,  and  a  great 
master     of    debate.      Few     politicians     of    the 


EARLY  LIFE  9 

eighteenth  century  showed  more  early  promise 
than  he,  and  few  had  a  career  which  was  so 
lamentably  ineffective.  Faults  of  temper  he 
certainly  had,  and  he  lacked  the  judgment 
and  balance  essential  to  a  statesman ;  but,  like 
many  of  his  fellows,  he  suffered  from  the  fact 
that  his  lot  was  cast  in  the  time  of  Walpole, 
whose  neglect  drove  him  into  opposition,  where 
his  policy  henceforward  was  guided  by  little 
more  than  pique.  In  the  Lords  the  leader  of  the 
Whig  Opposition  was  Carteret,  '^a  fine  person  of 
commanding  beauty,"  said  his  critical  son-in-law, 
"the  best  Greek  scholar  of  his  age,  overflowing 
with  wit,  not  so  much  a  diseur  de  bons  mots,  like 
Lord  Chesterfield,  as  a  man  of  true,  comprehensive, 
ready  wit,  which  at  once  saw  to  the  bottom,  and 
whose  imagination  never  failed  him,  and  was 
joined  to  great  natural  elegance."  ^  His  close 
acquaintance  with  foreign  politics,  above  all  his 
knowledge  of  Germany  and  the  German  language, 
gave  him  a  unique  place  among  his  contem- 
poraries and  an  immense  influence  with  the  King. 
Another  prominent  figure  among  the  Opposition 
Whigs  was  Chesterfield,  remembered  now  chiefly 
for  his  letters  and  his  traditional  position  at  the 
head  of  ton ;  a  courtier  rather  than  a  statesman, 
though  as  a  diplomatist  abroad  and  an  adminis- 
trator in  Ireland  he  showed  conspicuous  ability. 

*  FitzmAurice' s  Sieliurne,  i.  38. 


lo  CHATHAM 

The  other  great  section  of  the  Opposition  was 
made  up  of  the  Tories,  "rows  of  ponderous  fox- 
hunters,  fat  with  Staffordshire  or  Devonshire  ale." 
But  two  of  them  at  least  rose  above  mediocrity 
— Shippen,  the  able  and  incorruptible  Jacobite 
leader,  and  Sir  William  Wyndham,  titular  head 
of  the  Tories  for  many  years,  whose  eloquence 
and  personal  charm  won  for  him  a  considerable 
position.  How  far  the  Tories  were  leavened 
with  Jacobitism  it  is  difficult  to  say.  Shippen's 
gi-oup  was  confessedly  Jacobite ;  but  most  of  the 
remainder  accepted  the  dynasty  while  they  pro- 
tested against  its  policy.  The  Ministry  en- 
deavoured to  stultify  them  by  proclaiming  them 
all  Jacobites  without  discrimination.  But  their 
most  serious  disability  was,  that  long  exclusion 
from  office  had  robbed  them  of  administrative 
experience  and  capacity ;  and  though  in  integrity 
they  compared  favourably  at  this  time  with  the 
Whigs,  it  might  be  said  without  unfairness  that 
they  were  scarcely  exposed  to  temptation,  for 
there  seemed  but  little  prospect  of  either  a  Tory 
or  a  Coalition  Ministry. 

Pitt's  place  in  this  miscellaneous  host  was 
settled  for  him  by  his  strong  Whig  proclivities, 
his  antipathy  to  Walpole,  and  his  intimacy  with 
one  of  those  small  groups  of  politicians  united  by 
ties  of  friendship,  family,  or  interest,  which,  under 
the  name  of"  connections,"  were  imspeakably  dear 


EARLY  LIFE  ii 

to  the  heart  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The 
"  Cobham  cousinhood,"  or  "  Cobham's  cubs  "  as 
they  were  irreverently  called,  included  besides 
Lord  Cobham,  who  had  been  deprived  of  his 
regiment  by  Walpole,  Sir  George  Lyttelton, 
Richard  Grenville,  and,  soon  afterwards,  George 
Grenville.  Lyttelton  owed  his  return  for  Oke- 
hampton  to  the  Pitt  interest,  and  was  in  early 
life  Pitt's  most  intimate  associate.  His  was  a 
moderating  influence  upon  his  greater  but  im- 
petuous friend — an  influence  contrasting  strongly 
with  that  exercised  by  the  factious  and  overbear- 
ing spirit  of  Richard  Grenville.  But  the  latter, 
who  is  known  to  history  by  his  later  title  of  Earl 
Temple,  played  a  more  considerable  part  than 
Lyttelton  in  the  politics  of  his'time,  and,  becoming 
afterwards  Pitt's  brother-in-law,  took  Lyttelton's 
place  in  his  counsels,  with  results  that  were  more 
than  once  attended  with  disaster.  As  of  him,  so 
of  George  Grenville,  much  more  will  be  heard  in 
the  course  of  this  short  history.  Of  George 
Grenville  it  is  sufficient  now  to  say  that,  despite 
his  probity,  his  great  business  powers,  and  the 
orthodoxy  of  his  Whiggism,  there  never  was,  and 
never  could  have  been,  any  real  union  between 
him  and  Pitt.  Grenville  was  a  precisian  ;  and  the 
rigidity  of  his  point  of  view,  always  that  of  a  Parlia- 
mentarian and  a  lawyer,  made  him  an  impossible 
colleague  for  a  man  who,  like  Pitt,  was  at  once 


12  CHATHAM 

intensely  proud,  elastic  in  his  sympathies,  and  ever 
ready  to  sacrifice  the  letter  to  the  spirit  of  the  law. 

Pitt  made  his  first  speech  in  support  of  an 
address  to  the  Crown,  moved  by  Pulteney,  on  the 
marriage  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  to  the  Princess 
of  Saxe-Gotha,  It  was  "as  empty  and  wordy," 
says  Macaulay,  "as  a  maiden  speech  on  such  an 
occasion  might  be  expected  to  be."  ^  Certainly 
there  is  nothing  in  the  report  of  it  which  has  come 
down  to  us  that  could  excite  enthusiasm.  How- 
ever, it  received  high  contemporary  praise,  and 
the  impression  which  Pitt  made  was  deepened 
by  his  subsequent  performances.  He  had  not 
yet  attained,  by  any  means,  the  maturity  of  elo- 
quence which  astonishes  us  in  his  later  speeches. 
But  his  personal  attractions  were  great,  and 
instantly  drew  the  attention  of  Parliament  upon 
him.  His  graceful  and  commanding  figure  and 
his  piercing  eye,  together  with  that  strange 
fascination  of  gesture  and  delivery  in  which  no 
English  orator  seems  ever  to  have  approached 
him,  can  never  have  been  seen  to  more  advantage 
than  in  these  early  years  of  opposition.  Above  all, 
he  possessed  as  yet  unimpaired  a  voice  of  wonder- 
ful melody  and  resonance,  which  in  his  later  life, 
when  the  substance  of  what  he  said  showed  far 
more  real  beauty  and  power,  sank  too  often 
through  exhaustion  into  an  inaudible  whisper. 

^  Macaulay 's  Essayt :  "  William  Pitt,  Earl  of  Chatham." 


EARLY  LIFE  13 

He  soon  attracted  the  notice  of  Walpole,  who 
lost  no  time  in  manifesting  his  disapproval.  It 
was  time  to  "  muzzle  this  terrible  comet,"  and 
Pitt  was  accordingly  dismissed  from  the  army. 
The  only  result  was  that  he  plunged  with  fresh 
hostility  into  the  fiercest  of  opposition,  the  chief 
rallying  point  for  which  was  now  furnished  by 
the  Prince  of  Wales.  Prince  Frederick  had 
quarrelled  with  the  King  because  he  had  not 
been  allowed  to  wed  a  Prussian  princess,  and 
after  his  marriage  with  the  Princess  of  Saxe- 
Gotha  he  cherished  a  still  more  bitter  grievance 
on  account  of  the  inadequacy  and  insecurity  of 
the  allowance  which  he  received  from  his  father. 
He  was  himself  a  man  of  straw,  but  under  the 
able  tuition  of  Bolingbroke,  who,  though  excluded 
from  Parliament,  inspired  the  Opposition  as  a 
plotter  and  a  pamphleteer,  he  made  himself  its 
instrument,  and  his  personal  feud  against  the 
King  and  Queen  lent  its  attack  upon  the  Govern- 
ment a  peculiarly  factious  tone.  The  Cobham 
party  gathered  round  him,  and  Pitt  duly  supported 
Pulteney's  motion  for  an  address  praying  the 
King  to  settle  £100,000  a  year  on  the  Prince 
of  Wales.  Then,  when  in  the  summer  of  1737 
the  rupture  within  the  Royal  Family  was  com- 
plete, and  the  Prince,  driven  from  Court,  set 
up  a  separate  establishment  at  Norfolk  House, 
Pitt  obtained  compensation   for  his  dismissal  by 


14  CHATHAM 

Walpole  in  a  post  in  Frederick's  household.  The 
Prince  selected  the  little  Cobham  group  as  the 
special  object  of  his  favours,  and  Pitt  was  ap- 
pointed his  Groom  of  the  Bedchamber,  Lyttelton 
his  private  secretary.  In  this  rival  Court  circle 
Pitt  lived  on  terms  of  great  intimacy.  Charles 
Butler  tells  how  the  Prince  and  Pitt  were  walking 
one  day  in  Lord  Cobham's  gardens  at  Stowe,  apart 
from  the  other  guests  and  deep  in  conversation. 
Cobham  thought  that  Pitt  was  trying  to  lead  the 
Prince  into  some  incautious  project,  and  he  said 
as  much  to  one  of  the  company.  The  latter 
observed  that  at  all  events  their  tete-a-tete  could 
not  last  long.  "  Sir,"  said  Lord  Cobham  eagerly, 
"you  don't  know  Mr.  Pitt's  talent  of  insinuation  ; 
in  a  very  short  quarter  of  an  hour  he  can  persuade 
any  man  of  anything."  Pitt  at  this  time  was 
constantly  to  be  found  at  Stowe ;  and  the  poet 
Thomson,  when  he  wrote  of  its  "fair  majestic 
paradise,"  left  a  pleasant  reminiscence  of  him  in 
the  very  characteristic  lines — 

"  And  there,  O  Pitt,  thy  country's  early  boast. 
There  let  me  sit  beneath  the  sheltered  slopes ; 
Or  in  that  temple,  where  in  future  times, 
Thou  well  shalt  merit  a  distinguished  name, 
And  with  thy  converse  blest,  catch  the  last  smile 
Of  Autumn  beaming  o'er  the  yellow  woods.  "^ 

^  Thomson's  ' '  Autumn. " 


EARLY  LIFE  15 

A  still  surer  testimony  to  his  increasing  importance 
was  that  the  organs  of  the  Government  began  to 
assail  him.  '*  A  young  man  of  my  acquaintance," 
said  the  Gazetteer  in  the  quaint  language  of  the 
time,  '^  though  an  overbearing  disposition  and 
a  weak  judgment,  assuming  the  character  of  a 
great  man,  which  he  is  no  way  able  to  support, 
is  become  the  object  of  ridicule,  instead  of  praise. 
My  young  man  has  the  vanity  to  put  himself  in 
the  place  of  Tully.  But  let  him  consider  that 
everyone  who  has  the  same  natural  imperfections 
with  Tully,  has  not  therefore  the  same  natural 
perfections ;  though  his  neck  should  be  as  long, 
his  body  as  slender,  yet  his  voice  may  not  be  as 
sonorous,  his  action  may  not  be  as  just."  ^ 

^  Almon's  Anecdotes  of  Chatham,  i.  33. 


CHAPTER  II 

RISE    IN    PARLIAMENT 

Jenkins's  Ear  and  the  Spanish  War — War  of  the  Austrian 
Succession — Fall  of  Walpole — Ascendency  of  Carteret 
— Pitt's  vehement  attacks  on  him — Carteret  resigns — 
Pitt  supports  the  Pelhams — His  change  of  policy- 
discussed —  Pitt  and  Carteret  contrasted  —  Carteret's 
momentary  return  to  power — Pitt  given  office  by  the 
Pelhams — His  attitude  as  Paymaster  of  the  Forces. 

IN  the  present  chapter  it  is  proposed  to  trace 
the  outline  of  Pitt's  poHtical  career  up  to 
the  moment  when,  in  1746,  he  first  attained 
office.  Both  in  the  history  of  Europe  and  in  his 
own  this  was  a  period  of  transition.  In  British 
annals  it  was  ushered  in  by  the  "  colony  quarrel  " 
of  the  Spanish  War,  which  merged  itself  eventu- 
ally in  the  Continental  War  of  Succession,  and 
led  directly  up  to  the  beginning  of  the  world- 
wide struggle  between  England  and  France  for 
colonial  supremacy  over  which  Pitt  presided.  In 
the  sphere  of  Continental  politics  it  witnessed 
the  rise  of  Prussia  to  the  rank  of  a   first-class 

16 


RISE  IN  PARLIAMENT  17 

power,  and  the  commencement  of  the  long 
Austro-Prussian  rivalry  within  Genaaany  which, 
though  desperately  fought  out  again  in  the 
Seven  Years'  War,  can  only  be  said  to  have 
closed  in  the  nineteenth  century  on  the  field  of 
Koniggratz.  And,  finally,  in  the  life  of  Pitt  it 
covered  alike  his  growing  prominence  as  a  leader 
of  Opposition  and  his  undisguised  change  of  front 
upon  adhesion  to  the  Government. 

The  Spanish  War  was  in  the  nature  of  things 
inevitable,  but  it  was  an  accident,  and  almost, 
it  may  be  said,  a  phrase,  which  set  it  aflame. 
WTien  Captain  Jenkins,  in  a  sentence  too 
epigrammatic  to  have  been  original,  declared  at 
the  bar  of  the  House  of  Commons  that  he  had 
commended  his  soul  to  God  and  his  cause  to 
his  country  on  being  taken  and  tortured  by 
a  Spanish  guarda-costa,  an  electric  thrill  of 
sympathy  and  indignation  ran  through  the 
country,  which  made  it  certain  that  Walpole 
would  not  be  able  to  resist  the  call  for  war. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  merits  of  the  case 
of  Jenkins,  his  story  represented  not  unfaithfully 
the  precarious  state  of  things  in  the  New  World. 
Spain  still  claimed  a  monopoly  of  trade  with  South 
America,  and  England  in  theory  still  recognised 
the  claim.  By  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht  British 
rights  were  limited  to  the  concession  then 
granted  by  Spain,  of  trading  with  a  single  vessel 


i8  CHATHAM 

and  trafficking  in  negroes ;  but  in  practice 
England  carried  on  a  vast  illicit  trade  which  had 
long  outrun  these  dimensions.  Spain  retaliated 
by  stringently  exercising  the  right  of  search  on 
the  high  seas ;  and  the  Spanish  officials^  who 
seized  British  ships  and  maltreated  British 
sailors,  undoubtedly  behaved  with  cruelty  and 
insolence  in  their  repression  of  encroachments 
on  a  monopoly  which  was  really  indefensible. 
Beneath  the  question  of  treaty  stipulations  lay 
other  problems  of  incalculable  importance,  to 
which  Carlyle  has  given  trenchant  expression  in 
his  Frederick  the  Great.  "  Shall  there  be  a 
Yankee  nation,  shall  there  not  be  ;  shall  the  New 
World  be  of  Spanish  type,  shall  it  be  of  English  ? 
Issues  which  we  may  call  immense.  Among  the 
then  extant  sons  of  Adam,  where  was  he  who 
could  in  the  faintest  degree  surmise  what  issues 
lay  hidden  in  the  Jenkins  Ear  Question  t"  '^ 

A  further  significance  was  given  to  the  struggle 
by  the  existence  of  the  Family  Compact  between 
the  Crowns  of  France  and  Spain.  This  had  been 
signed  in  1733,  and  it  linked  the  two  Bourbon 
Powers  together  in  a  league  to  check  England's 
commercial  development.  Viewed  in  the  light 
of  this  menacing  alliance,  the  Spanish  War  is 
seen  to  be  only  an  initial  stage  in  the  fight  for 
the    expansion    of    England's    colonial    empire, 

^  Frederick  the  Great,  bk.  xii.  ch.   12  ;   3. 


RISE  IN  PARLIAMENT  19 

which  rapidly  resolved  itself  into  a  duel  with 
France  lasting  for  the  rest  of  the  century.  So 
regarded,  it  seems  almost  superfluous  to  debate 
its  morality.  England's  legal  title  was  un- 
questionably faulty,  but  she  had  the  weight  of 
facts  and  the  insistent  pressure  of  destiny  upon 
her  side.  The  enterprise  on  which  she  embarked 
was  characteristic  of  the  time  which  Sir  John 
Seeley  has  well  described  as  the  iron  age  of 
international  relations.  Material  motives  inspired 
it.  But  it  was  not  undertaken  at  the  bidding 
of  a  diplomatist  or  a  dynastic  combination :  a 
genuine  national  impulse  prompted  the  first  of 
those  struggles  in  which  England  seemed  to 
herself  to  be  fighting  not  less  truly  for  existence 
than  for  expansion. 

Walpole  withstood  the  people's  desire  for  war 
as  long  as  he  dared,  and  at  one  time  it  seemed 
possible  that  he  might  patch  up  the  dispute  by  a 
convention.  But  the  gathering  clamour  in  the 
country  and  the  increased  hostility  of  the  attitude 
of  France  and  Spain  soon  made  further  resistance 
on  his  part  impossible,  and  he  declared  war  in 
November  1739-  On  the  details  of  the  sadly 
mismanaged  campaign  which  followed  there  is 
not  space  to  dwell  here.  It  began  auspiciously 
with  Admiral  Vernon's  capture  of  Portobello. 
But  the  great  expedition  against  Carthagena 
proved  utterly  disastrous  ;  and  the  only  incidents 


20  CHATHAM 

of  the  war  on  which  it  is  possible  to  look  back 
with  satisfaction  are  the  exploits  of  Anson,  whose 
long  adventurous  voyage,  ending  with  the  cap- 
ture of  the  Acapulco  galleon,  forms  one  of  the 
bright  pages  of  British  seamanship. 

Pitt  was  one  of  the  most  active  of  the  war 
party  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Such  reports 
as  we  possess,  however,  of  his  attacks  upon  the 
Government  have  not  much  authentic  value.  To 
this  period  belongs  that  most  celebrated  repartee, 
which  was  put  into  his  mouth  by  the  greatest 
man  who  ever  figured  as  a  Parliamentary  reporter. 
Dr.  Johnson  was  now  writing  accounts  of  the 
debates  for  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  from  meagre 
notes,  and  his  own  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things 
and  his  determination  "that  the  Whig  dogs 
should  not  have  the  best  of  it "  decided  the 
results.  Horace  Walpole  the  elder  had  taxed 
Pitt  in  debate  with  the  temerity  of  youth.  To 
this  Johnson  made  Pitt  reply  in  the  well-known 
words :  "  The  atrocious  crime  of  being  a  young 
man,  which  the  honourable  gentleman  has  with 
such  spirit  and  decency  charged  upon  me,  I  shall 
neither  attempt  to  palliate  nor  deny,  but  con- 
tent myself  with  wishing  that  I  may  be  one  of 
those  whose  follies  cease  with  their  youth,  and 
not  of  that  number  who  are  ignorant  in  spite  of 
experience." 

The  last  fierce  struggle  within  Parliament  was 


RISE  IN  PARLIAMENT  21 

now  approaching  which  ended  in  the  fall  of 
Walpole^  and  is  so  vividly  pictured  in  his  son's 
letters  to  Sir  Horace  Mann.  The  failure  of  the 
operations  on  the  Spanish  Main  had  by  themselves 
gone  far  to  undo  the  Minister.  But  what  made 
his  overthrow  more  certain  was  that  he  was 
involved  in  a  European  war  as  well. 

Dark  clouds  were  gathering  over  the  Continent, 
and  with  the  death  of  the  Emperor  Charles  vi. 
in  October  1740  came  the  bursting  of  the  storm. 
Charles  had  for  twenty  years  devoted  himself 
to  securing  his  daughter's  peaceable  succession 
to  his  dominions,  and  had  secured  from  the 
Great  Powers  a  recognition  of  the  Pragmatic 
Sanction,  which  guaranteed  it.  But  when  he 
died,  leaving  Maria  Theresa  apparently  defence- 
less, the  opportunity  for  territorial  peculation 
was  too  tempting  to  be  lost. 

Frederick  11.  poured  a  Prussian  army  into 
Silesia,  and  overwhelmed  the  Austrians  under 
Neipperg  at  Mollwitz.  France  threw  herself 
into  the  attack,  hoping  to  secure  the  Austrian 
Netherlands  as  her  prize.  The  Italian  duchies 
of  Maria  Theresa  attracted  Spain.  Finally,  the 
Elector  of  Bavaria  appeared  as  a  rival  candidate 
for  the  Austrian  dominions  and  the  Imperial 
Crown;  and  before  the  end  of  1741  Silesia  was 
firmly  held  by  Prussia,  Bohemia  was  in  the 
possession  of  the  French  and  Bavarians,  and  the 


22  CHATHAM 

Elector  had  been  crowned  its  king.  The  obvious 
and  indeed  the  only  ally  to  whom  the  Queen  of 
Hungary  could  look  was  England,  and  both 
George  and  the  country  were  eager  for  war. 
Parliament  voted  a  subsidy  to  Maria  Theresa,  and 
George  ii.  went  over  to  the  Continent  to  raise 
an  army  in  her  defence.  But,  alarmed  by  the 
advance  of  the  French  on  Hanover,  he  made  a 
treaty  holding  it  neutral  for  a  year,  to  the  great 
disgust  of  the  English  people,  who  saw  them- 
selves deprived  of  the  aid  of  George's  principality, 
by  his  anxious  fears,  on  one  of  the  few  occasions 
when  it  was  worth  having.  The  disgust  recoiled 
upon  Walpole,  who  as  a  peace  Minister  was 
wholly  out  of  place  in  this  complicated  war.  In 
the  general  election  of  1741  his  majority  dwindled 
away,  and,  after  subsisting  precariously  into  the 
next  year,  the  Ministry  resigned  at  the  beginning 
of  February. 

There  was  a  fierce  outburst  of  popular  resent- 
ment against  Walpole,  which  took  shape  as  a 
demand  for  his  impeachment.  No  one  pursued 
him  with  more  pertinacity  than  Pitt.  Such 
violence  appears  to  us  extraordinary ;  but  it  must 
be  remembered  that  Pitt  was  only  obeying  that 
tradition  of  vindictiveness  against  fallen  Ministers 
which  still  lingered  in  English  politics,  that  he 
fully  believed  Walpole  to  have  been  guilty  of  grave 
shortcomings  of  conduct  and  high  policy,  and  that 


RISE  IN  PARLIAMENT  23 

he  faithfully  reflected  the  temper  of  the  people. 
For  this  we  may  tax  him  with  want  of  modera- 
tion, but  we  can  hardly  tax  him  with  insincerity.^ 
Though  foremost  among  the  antagonists  of  Wal- 
pole,  Pitt  did  not  obtain  office  in  the  new  Ministry, 
being  personally  unacceptable  to  the  King. 
That  Ministry  was  indeed  far  from  constituting  a 
complete  triumph  for  the  Opposition.     Pulteney 

1  The  charge,  however,  to  which  Macaulay  gives  promi- 
nence in  his  Essays  would,  if  established,  convict  him  of 
being  insincere.  It  is  alleged  that  Pitt  and  Lyttelton,  with 
the  concurrence  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  offered  to  screen 
Walpole  from  prosecution  if  he  would  use  his  influence  with 
the  King  in  their  favour.  But  as  Mr.  Walford  Green,  who 
examines  the  story  at  length  in  his  valuable  and  interesting 
Life  of  William  Pitt,  has  shown,  there  are  weighty  reasons 
for  regarding  its  authenticity  as  more  than  doubtful. 
Macaulay  calls  it  "a  story  which  is  supported  by  strong 
testimony,  and  which  may  be  found  in  so  common  a  book  as 
Coxe's  Life  of  Walpole."  It  does  not  appear  at  all  in  the 
first  edition  of  Coxe,  and  it  rests  on  the  biassed  testimony 
of  Glover.  Further,  it  was  recounted  to  Glover  by  the 
Prince  of  Wales  in  1747,  when  the  latter  was  full  of  hos- 
tility towards  Pitt.  Horace  Walpole  knew  nothing  of  it. 
It  represents  Sir  Robert  as  rejecting  the  offer  "  with  the 
utmost  contempt " ;  yet  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  made  over- 
tures to  the  Prince  before  his  fall.  Finally,  it  represents 
the  Prince  as  making  overtures  to  Walpole  when  his  true 
interest  was  undoubtedly  to  wait  for  advances  from  the 
Court.  On  the  whole,  it  must  be  said  that  both  the  character 
and  the  credentials  of  the  story  are  far  from  convincing. — 
yide  Green's  William  Pitt  (1^01),  pp.  19-23. 


24  CHATHAM 

had  virtually  effaced  himself.  At  a  moment  when 
there  was  an  almost  universal  call  for  him  to  lead, 
he  remembered  an  old  incautious  pledge  that  he 
would  never  take  office ;  and,  with  incredible 
want  of  discretion,  while  refusing  a  department 
he  accepted  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet  and  a  peerage. 
He  never  again  recovered  the  confidence  of  the 
people  or  obtained  a  commanding  influence  in 
politics.  The  Ministry,  as  actually  formed  under 
the  nominal  leadership  of  Lord  Wilmington,  was 
really  a  coalition  between  the  followers  of  Walpole 
and  the  Opposition  Whigs.  Of  the  latter  the 
chief  representative  was  Carteret ;  of  the  former, 
the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  Henry  Pelham  his 
brother,  and  Lord  Chancellor  Hardwicke  re- 
mained in  office.  There  was  thus,  from  the  first, 
a  division  in  the  camp.  Though  Walpole  had 
fallen,  he  still  enjoyed  power  vicariously  through 
the  predominance  of  his  nominees  ;  and,  while 
ostensibly  outside  politics,  his  influence  always 
made  itself  felt,  and  was  finally  strong  enough  to 
turn  the  scale  in  favour  of  the  Pelhams  and 
against  Carteret, 

For  the  moment,  however,  Carteret  was  in  the 
ascendant.  His  ambition  and  abounding  energy 
found  full  scope  in  conducting  the  European 
War.  To  Maria  Theresa  he  rendered  inestimable 
service.  Seeing  that  Prussia  held  the  key  to 
the  situation,  he  induced  the  Queen  to  sign  the 


FREDERICK    THE   GREAT 
After  the  portrait  by  George  I'atider  Myii 


RISE  IN  PARLIAMENT  25 

Peace  of  Breslau,  by  which,  at  the  price  of  ac- 
quiescence in  the  loss  of  Silesia,  she  detached 
Frederick  from  France.  He  made  ceaseless 
efforts  to  galvanise  the  Dutch  into  activity,  and 
formed  the  composite  army  of  aggression  in 
Flanders,  which  fought  at  Dettingen.  By  the 
Treaty  of  Worms  he  pledged  England  anew 
to  the  continuance  of  the  war.  Yet,  in  spite 
of  his  undoubted  ability  as  a  War  Minister,  he 
steadily  lost  ground  at  home.  To  some  extent 
this  was  due  to  intrigues  within  the  Ministry,  but 
much  more  was  it  the  result  of  the  vehemence 
with  which  Pitt  and  Chesterfield  gave  expression 
to  a  popular  cry.  Carteret  was  charged  with 
sacrificing  everything  to  Hanoverian  interests. 
The  question  of  Hanover  had  always  been  one  on 
which  George  11.  and  his  people  parted  company, 
and  Carteret  was  now  involved  in  the  un- 
popularity of  the  King.  The  agitation  reached 
its  height  when,  to  prevent  the  reduction  of  the 
Hanoverian  army  to  its  peace  footing,  Carteret 
took  16,000  Hanoverians  into  British  pay.  Pitt 
poured  invective  upon  the  Minister.  It  was  but 
too  apparent,  he  said,  that  ''this  great,  this 
powerful,  this  formidable  kingdom  is  considered 
only  as  a  province  to  a  despicable  electorate." 
The  troops  of  Hanover  had  "marched  to  the 
place  most  distant  from  the  enemy,  least  in 
danger  of  an  attack,"  and  their  only  claim  for 


96  CHATHAM 

pa)rment  was  that  they  had  left  their  own  country 
for  a  place  of  greater  security.  We  were  "  hiring 
Hanoverians  to  eat  and  sleep."  ^  While  the 
clamour  still  lasted  Lord  Wilmington  died  in 
July  1743,  and  a  trial  of  strength  followed 
between  the  two  sections  of  the  Ministry. 
Pulteney,  now  Lord  Bath,  appeared  as  Carteret's 
candidate  for  the  leadership ;  on  the  other  side 
Henry  Pelham  was  supported  by  the  secret  but 
still  potent  influence  of  Walpole.  The  contest 
ended  in  a  victory  for  Pelham,  and  Carteret's 
extinction  became  only  a  question  of  time.  Pitt 
redoubled  his  attacks  on  him.  Carteret  was  "  an 
execrable,  a  sole  Minister,  who  seems  to  have 
drunk  of  the  potion  which  poets  have  described 
as  causing  men  to  forget  their  country."  ^  Speak- 
ing again  at  the  beginning  of  1 744  on  the  motion 
for  a  grant  to  maintain  Hanoverians  in  British 
pay  during  the  year,  Pitt  stigmatised  him  afresh 
as  "  a  Hanover  troop  Minister,"  and  in  the  heat  of 
debate  he  went  so  far  as  to  assert  that  the  public 
welfare  demanded  the  separation  of  Hanover 
from  England.3  At  last  Carteret  made  overtures 
to  the  Opposition,  but  the  Pelhams  had  been 
before  him,  and  were  willing  to  take  their  chief 
opponents  into  the  Ministry  in  order  to  get  rid 
of  their  Foreign  Minister.     Left  now  in  complete 

*  Thackeray's  Life  of  Chatham,  i.  90. 

2  Coxe's  Felham,  i.  117.  *  JiU.  i.  129. 


RISE  IN  PARLIAMENT  27 

isolation,  Carteret  gave  up  the  struggle  and 
resigned  office  in  November  1744. 

In  the  reconstituted  administration  the  Bedford 
connection,  the  Cobham  connection,  and  even 
a  few  Tories,  were  represented ;  and  Henry  Pelham 
found  himself  practically  a  Premier  Avithout  oppo- 
sition. But  Pitt  was  still  excluded  from  office. 
He  had  been  promised  the  Secretaryship  at  War 
by  the  Pelhams ;  the  Royal  disfavour,  however, 
again  proved  too  strong.  Yet,  though  he  did  not 
obtain  office,  the  reconstruction  of  the  Pelham 
Ministry  marks  an  important  epoch  in  his  career. 
For  now  he  relinquishes  opposition,  and  appears 
for  the  first  time  as  a  supporter  of  the  Govern- 
ment. The  Pelhams  pledged  themselves  to 
induce  the  King  to  admit  him  ultimately  to 
office,  and  in  return  he  gave  them  undeviating 
assistance. 

It  is  this  change  of  front  which  forms  one  of 
the  chief  of  the  many  charges  of  inconsistency 
that  have  been  brought  against  him.  It  is  urged 
that,  after  carrying  his  denunciations  of  the 
Hanoverian  policy  of  Carteret  to  lengths  hardly 
compatible  with  loyalty  to  the  Crown,  he  gave 
his  firm  support  to  a  Ministry  which  simply 
continued  that  policy ;  and  that,  though  he  had 
inveighed  without  measure  against  all  Carteret's 
principles,  they  were  in  many  respects  identical 
with  his  own,  and  were  actually  put  into  practice 


28  CHATHAM 

by  him  later  during  his  great  War  ^  Ministry. 
Undoubtedly,  there  were  strong  points  of  similarity 
between  Carteret  and  Pitt.  Details  of  policy 
apart,  they  had  in  their  tastes  and  character  much 
in  common.  Both  regarded  with  the  indifference 
of  disdain  those  details  of  patronage  and  Par- 
liamentary intrigue  which  filled  so  considerable 
a  place  in  the  politics  of  the  time.  Both  were 
penetrated  with  a  sense  of  the  greatness  of  Eng- 
land, and  occupied  themselves  by  choice  with  large 
schemes  designed  to  give  effect  to  it.  The  mind 
of  Carteret,  like  that  of  Pitt,  dwelt  habitually 
and  by  choice  in  the  regions  of  high  policy.  His 
well-known  dictum — "  What  is  it  to  me  who  is  a 
judge  or  who  is  a  bishop  ?  It  is  my  business  to 
make  kings  and  emperors,  and  to  maintain  the 
balance  of  Europe  " — was  one  which  Pitt  might 
have  echoed.  And  no  one  who  reads  the  moving 
story  in  which  Robert  Wood  relates  how,  when 
Under-Secretary  of  State  in  1762,  he  carried  to 
Carteret,  then  Lord  President  and  lying  upon  his 
deathbed,  the  preliminary  articles  of  the  Treaty 
of  Paris,  and  found  him  at  first  too  languid  to 
attend  to  them ;  how  Carteret  then  roused  him- 
self, and  repeated  the  lines  from  the  Iliad  in 
which  Sarpedon  m'ges  upon  Glaucus  that,  since 
even  in  peace  men  cannot  live  for  ever,  and  death 
hovers  over  them  in  countless  shapes,  they  should 
go  forward  into  the  battle  ;  and  how  he  listened 


RISE  IN  PARLIAMENT  29 

to  the  reading  of  the  treaty^  and  recovered 
strength  to  pronounce  a  benediction  "on  the 
most  glorious  war,  and  the  most  honourable  peace, 
this  nation  ever  saw/' — no  one  who  reads  this 
story  can  fail  to  be  reminded  of  the  aspiring 
genius  of  Pitt,  and  the  manner  in  which  he  loved 
to  speak  of  "great  subjects,  great  empires,  great 
characters,  effulgent  ideas,  and  classical  illustra- 
tions." Besides  these  resemblances  in  taste  and 
temper,  the  fundamental  principle  of  the  policy, 
of  Carteret  was  one  in  which  Pitt  also  believed. 
Carteret's  designs  were  inspired  by  antagonism  to 
France,  and,  like  Pitt  in  the  Seven  Years'  War, 
he  could  not  rest  till  he  had  brought  her  to  her 
knees.  Nor  can  it  be  denied  that,  after  Carteret's 
fall,  Pitt  as  a  supporter  of  the  Ministry  acquiesced 
in  and  defended  the  same  schemes  for  the  employ- 
ment of  Hanoverian  troops  which,  when  Carteret 
proposed  them,  he  had  violently  attacked. 

Pitt  certainly  performed  a  remarkable  volte  face 
when  he  linked  his  fortunes  with  the  Govern- 
ment. Was  it  due  solely  to  his  desire  for  office  ? 
In  justice  to  him  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
Pelhams,  in  continuing  Carteret's  policy,  con- 
tinued it  with  a  difference.  Carteret's  supremacy 
involved  a  real  menace  to  England,  which  was  no 
longer  felt  on  his  disappearance.  His  position 
had  been  a  peculiar  one,  based  on  his  ascendency 
over  George  11.  and  intimately  bound  up  with  the 


30  CHATHAM 

Hanoverian  connection.  He  ignored  the  national 
will.  His  absorbed  interest  in  Oantinental  poli- 
tics, and  the  undoubted  partiality  for  Hanover 
of  his  confidant  the  King,  excited  in  England  a 
not  unnatural  distrust.  Carteret  took  no  pains  to 
make  himself  intelligible  to  the  people,  and  in 
consequence  he  never  kindled  their  enthusiasm. 
When  Pitt  became  Minister  he  infused  a  measure 
of  his  own  energy  and  efficiency  into  every 
department  of  government,  and,  himself  re- 
presenting most  truly  the  ardent  impulse  of  the 
nation,  he  made  England  organic  in  a  sense  in 
which  she  could  hardly  be  said  to  have  been  so 
since  the  great  epoch  of  Elizabeth.  But  Carteret, 
with  all  his  great  knowledge  and  ability,  left 
no  mark  on  the  public  service,  and  preferred 
diplomatic  triumphs  in  Germany  to  a  genuinely 
British  policy.  His  glance  never  swept  the  wide 
horizon  of  England's  colonial  development ;  and 
while  Pitt  saw  that  the  European  struggle  formed 
merely  a  subsidiary  part  of  the  great  duel  with 
France,  to  Carteret  it  was,  we  may  say,  not  a 
means  but  an  end. 

These  considerations  may  help  to  explain  Pitt's 
change  of  attitude  when  Carteret  was  removed 
from  the  scene.  At  the  same  time  an  attempt  to 
rationalise  his  conduct  completely  would  be  un- 
true to  history.  He  had  undoubtedly  a  keen 
desire  for  office — a  desire  not  unparalleled  in  the 


RISE  IN  PARLIAMENT  31 

early  careers  of  other  British  statesmen  who  have 
afterwards  been  accorded  the  fullest  confidence 
of  the  nation,  and  not  unjustifiable  when  we 
consider  the  use  he  made  of  power  when  he 
attained  it.  And  no  statesman  ever  cared  less 
about  perfect  political  consistency.  He  seems 
even  to  have  taken  a  pride  in  his  changes  for  their 
own  sake,  as  though  conscious  of  an  intellectual 
strength  and  dominating  force  of  character  which 
would  command  acquiescence  in  his  most  surpris- 
ing conversions.  Mr.  Lecky,  in  the  great  history 
to  which  all  who  attempt  to  tell  any  part  of  the 
story  over  again  owe  so  large  a  debt,  well  observes 
that  it  is  an  extraordinary  proof,  not  only  of  his 
capacity,  but  of  the  impression  of  sincerity  which 
he  left  upon  his  contemporaries,  that  in  the  face 
of  his  fluctuations  he  should  still  have  preserved 
his  moral  ascendency.  What  competent  observers 
thought  of  him  at  this  period  may  be  gathered 
from  a  letter  written  in  1742  by  James  Oswald, 
in  which  he  is  compared  with  the  great  lawyer 
and  orator  Murray,  the  future  Lord  Mansfield. 
Murray,  said  Oswald,  spoke  like  a  pleader,  while 
Pitt  spoke  like  a  gentleman  and  a  statesman. 
"  Murray  gains  your  attention  by  the  perspicacity 
of  his  arguments  and  the  elegance  of  his  diction, 
Pitt  commands  your  attention  and  respect  by  the 
nobleness,  the  greatness  of  his  sentiments,  the 
strength  and  energy  of  his  expressions,  and  the 


32  CHATHAM 

certainty  you  are  in  of  his  always  rising  to  a 
greater  elevation  both  of  thought  and  style.  For 
this  talent  he  possesses  beyond  any  speaker  I  ever 
heard,  of  never  falling  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  his  speech,  either  in  thought  or  expression. 
And  as  in  this  session  he  has  begun  to  speak  like 
a  man  of  business  as  well  as  an  orator,  he  will  in 
all  probability  be,  or  rather  at  present  is,  allowed 
to  make  as  great  an  appearance  as  ever  man  did 
in  that  House — I  think  him  sincerely  the  most 
finished  character  I  ever  knew."  ^ 

Outside  the  field  of  politics  he  had  attracted 
the  attention  of  a  remarkable  personage,  who 
testified  her  approval  of  his  attacks  on  Carteret 
in  the  most  practical  fashion.  In  October  1744 
Sarah  Duchess  of  Marlborough  passed  away, 
bequeathing  Pitt  a  legacy  of  £10,000  "upon 
account  of  his  merit  in  the  noble  defence  he  has 
made  for  the  support  of  the  laws  of  England,  and 
to  prevent  the  ruin  of  his  country."  This  was  the 
first  of  the  benefactions  which  Pitt  received  from 
admirers  of  his  politics,  and  it  cannot  have  been 
the  least  welcome.  At  once  profuse  and  poor, 
he  was  on  the  threshold  of  an  official  career  in 
which,  by  his  own  deliberate  choice,  he  debarred 
himself  from  the  customary  methods  of  Ministerial 
plunder. 

Pitt  signalised  his  adhesion  to  the  Pelhams  by 
^  Thackeray's  Life  of  Chatham,  i.  96. 


RISE  IN  PARLIAMENT  33 

one  of  those   elaborately  theatrical  appearances 
in   which    he   indulged    so    often   in    later   life 
and  from  the  first  delighted.      Taking  his    seat 
in  the  House  ''with  the  apparatus  and  mien  of 
an   invalid,"   he    announced    that   he   perceived 
a   dawn    of  salvation    to    the    country   breaking 
forth,  and  that  he  would  follow  it  as  far  as  it 
would  lead  him.     In  point  of  fact  the  war  went 
on  with   very  indifferent   results.     In    1745    the 
British   forces   were   defeated   by   Marshal   Saxe 
at    Fontenoy,   and    two    months   later    followed 
Charles  Edward's    landing   at    Moidart,  and    the 
Jacobite    rebellion.       Throughout     the    anxious 
days  of  the   Forty-five,  when   incompetence   in 
high  places  and   public  apathy  conspired  nearly 
to  wreck  the  dynasty,  Pitt  gave  firm  support  to 
the  Government.     The    Pelhams  had   continued 
to  urge  his  claims  to  office  upon  the  King.     At 
last,  through  a  false  move  on  the  part  of  George 
II.,  came  his   opportunity.     Ever   since   the  dis- 
missal of  Carteret,  the    King   had  chafed  at  his 
impotence  in  the  hands  of  uncongenial  Ministers ; 
he  had  been  compelled  to  admit  Chesterfield,  and 
could  only  just    contrive    to    exclude    Pitt.       By 
February    1746   his   powers   of  endurance   were 
exhausted,   and    he   appealed    to   Pulteney   and 
Carteret,  now  Lords  Bath  and  Granville  respect- 
ively, to  rid  him  of  the  Pelhams.     As  a  pretext 
against  this  intrigue  the  Ministers  resigned  office 
3 


34  CHATHAM 

in  a  body.  Granville  with  jovial  optimism 
stepped  into  their  places,  and  spent  forty-eight 
hours  in  endeavouring  to  form  a  rival  adminis- 
tration. "  It  was  a  good  idea  of  somebody/' 
wrote  Horace  Walpole,  "when  no  man  would 
accept  a  place  under  the  new  system,  that 
Granville  and  Bath  were  met  going  about  the 
streets  calling  Odd  man  !  as  the  hackney  chairmen 
do  when  they  want  a  partner  ! !  " 

The  scheme,  which  GranvUle  himself  owned 
was  mad,  failed  completely,  and  the  Pelhams 
returned  to  office,  this  time  bringing  Pitt  with 
them  as  a  matter  of  course.  On  February  22 
he  was  appointed  Joint  Vice  -  Treasurer  of 
Ireland,  and  soon  after  was  transferred  to  the 
more  important  post  of  Paymaster  of  the  Forces. 
To  previous  holders  of  the  office  the  Paymastership 
had  brought  enrichment  in  abimdant  measure. 
It  was  the  recognised  official  practice  to  invest 
the  large  sum  of  public  money  handed  to  them 
for  payment  of  the  troops,  and  appropriate  the 
interest,  and  also  to  retain  a  commission  of  ^  per 
cent,  on  all  subsidies  granted  by  Parliament  to 
foreign  Powers.  Both  emoluments  were  illegal, 
but  for  long  no  question  had  been  raised  against 
their  enjoyment,  and  in  time  of  war,  of  course, 
they  were  eminently  profitable.  Pitt  refused  to 
touch  either  of  these  sources  of  income,  and  con- 
tented himself  with    his   regular  official   salary. 


RISE  IN  PARLIAMENT  35 

Further,  when  the  King  of  Sardinia  offered  him 
a  free  gift  equivalent  to  the  commission  which 
he  might  have  levied  on  his  subsidy,  he  declined 
it  without  hesitation.  This  probity  has  been 
called  ostentatious,  and  so  in  a  sense  it  was.  But 
its  very  ostentation  was  salutary,  for  a  less  con- 
spicuous act  of  self-denial  would  hardly  have 
impressed  the  country.  It  gave  at  least  a 
momentary  shock  to  the  corrupt  politicians  of 
the  time,  and  it  raised  hopes  among  the  people 
of  a  higher  standard  of  Ministerial  purity — hopes 
which  no  statesmen  did  more  than  Pitt  and  his 
great  son  to  fulfil.  It  carried  to  them  the  con- 
viction that  Pitt  stood  on  a  plane  above  his 
fellows,  and  from  thenceforward  they  yielded 
him  an  ungrudging  confidence,  which,  though 
recalled  for  a  moment  in  1761,  was  never  finally 
withdrawn. 

On  his  colleagues  in  office  he  made  a  most 
favourable  impression,  and  was  pronounced  to 
have  the  dignity  of  Sir  William  Wyndham,  the 
wit  of  Pulteney,  and  the  knowledge  and  judgment 
of  Walpole.  He  was  staunch  in  their  support, 
and  helped  to  defend  the  Treaty  of  Aix-la- 
Chapelle,  which  in  1748  put  an  end  to  the 
European  War.  The  debate  on  the  peace 
furnishes  an  interesting  example  of  the  scant 
attention  which  Pitt  paid  to  charges  of  incon- 
sistency.      On      this     occasion     Lord     Egmont 


36  CHATHAM 

ventured  to  observe  that  the  claim  against  Spain's 
right  of  search  was  not  so  much  as  mentioned  in 
the  treaty.  Pitt  summarily  dismissed  the  ac- 
cusation. "  He  had  once  been  an  advocate  for 
that  claim ;  it  was  when  he  was  a  young  man ; 
but  he  was  now  ten  years  older,  had  considered 
public  affairs  more  coolly,  and  was  convinced 
that  the  claim  of  no  search  respecting  British 
vessels  near  the  coast  of  Spanish  America  could 
never  be  obtained  unless  Spain  was  so  reduced  as 
to  consent  to  any  terms  her  conquerors  might 
think  proper  to  impose."  ^  On  the  other  hand, 
he  refused  to  be  a  party  to  any  weakening  of 
the  national  forces.  He  spoke  strongly  in  favour 
of  increasing  the  naval  establishment,  and  "  called 
the  fleet  our  standing  army ;  the  army  a  little 
spirited  body,  so  improved  by  discipline  that  that 
discipline  alone  was  worth  five  thousand  men." 

^  Thackeray's  Life  of  Chatham,  i.  175. 


CHAPTER   III 


THE    HOUR    OF    CRISIS 


Death  of  Henry  Pelham — Newcastle,  Prime  Minister — The 
leadership  of  the  Commons — Pitt  passed  over — His 
marriage  with  Lady  Hester  Grenville — Pitt  and  Fox 
mutiny  against  Newcastle — Fox  admitted  to  the 
Cabinet — Position  of  Pitt — The  situation  in  India  and 
America — Diplomatic  activity  in  Europe — Beginning 
of  the  Seven  Years'  War — Minorca  and  the  Black  Hole 
— Newcastle  resigns — Pitt  takes  office  with  the  Duke 
of  Devonshire. 

THE  period  1748-1754  was  a  tranquil  breath- 
ing space  between  the  war  that  had  ended 
and  the  greater  war  that  was  to  follow.  It  was 
during  these  years,  the  last  of  his  life,  that  Henry 
Pelham  left  most  mark  on  English  legislation. 
Though  in  no  sense  a  remarkable  man,  he  had 
industry  and  good  business  qualities,  and  con- 
tinued not  unworthily  the  fiscal  policy  of  Walpole. 
His  financial  measures  for  reducing  the  interest 
and  consolidating  the  branches  of  the  National 
Debt  were  successful,  and  he  had  ample  leisure 

37 


428780 


38  CHATHAM 

to  carry  out  his  reforms.  Parliamentary  opposition 
was  for  the  time  being  practically  dead,  and  the 
interest  of  members  centred  in  the  prosaic  dis- 
cussion of  commercial  questions.  Politics  sank 
back  into  Walpolean  placidity.  The  only 
vitalising  influence  in  the  country  was  the  great 
movement  of  Methodism.  It  was  some  ten  years 
since  Whitefield  had  taken  the  momentous  step  of 
preaching  to  the  colliers  of  Kingswood,  and,  when 
once  the  Wesleys  had  followed  his  example  and 
the  institution  of  lay  preaching  had  been 
sanctioned,  their  work  spread  far  and  wide 
through  England.  By  1749  it  had  even  gained 
a  footing  in  fashionable  London,  and  Horace 
Walpole  wrote  to  Mann :  "  If  you  ever  think  of 
returning  to  England,  as  I  hope  it  will  be  long 
first,  you  must  prepare  yourself  with  Methodism. 
I  really  believe  that  by  that  time  it  will  be 
necessary — this  sect  increases  as  fast  as  almost 
ever  any  religious  nonsense  did."  Wide  as  the 
gulf  may  seem  between  the  work  of  the  Method- 
ists and  the  career  of  Pitt,  and  fully  as  Pitt  shared 
the  prejudice  of  the  eighteenth-century  intellect 
against  '' enthusiasm,"  yet  Methodism,  and  the 
Evangelical  revival  within  the  Church  of  England 
to  which  it  gave  rise,  co-operated  most  effectively 
with  his  inspiring  patriotism  and  the  sense  of 
national  greatness  awakened  by  his  administration 
to  arouse  and  dematerialise  the  nation. 


THE  HOUR  OF  CRISIS  39 

In  March  1754  Henry  Pelham  died.  The 
Duke  of  Newcastle  succeeded  his  brother  as 
Prime  Minister,  but  the  leadership  of  the  House 
of  Commons  was  vacant.  There  were  three  men 
to  any  of  whom  it  might  reasonably  be  offered : 
Murray,  Henry  Fox,  and  Pitt.  Murray  enjoyed 
as  great  prestige  and  power  in  the  House  as  any 
lawyer  has  possessed  before  or  after  him ;  but 
his  real  ambition  was  not  Parliamentary  but  legal, 
and  he  shrank  from  the  turbulent  life  of  a  leader 
in  the  House  of  Commons.  Fox  might  be 
regarded  as  the  most  natural  heir  of  Pelham,  for, 
like  Pelham,  he  had  been  trained  in  Walpole's 
school.  He  had  not  passed  through  it  unscathed. 
Walpole's  influence  had  left  him,  despite  his  good 
heart  and  good  sense,  a  political  mercenary.  But 
it  had  not  impaired  his  social  attractiveness,  his 
courage,  his  readiness,  and  his  consummate  skill 
in  debate ;  nor  had  he  yet  too  palpably  exposed 
his  conviction  that  all  the  objects  of  statesmanship 
counted  for  little  beside  the  chance  which  it 
afforded  of  making  money. 

In  genius  Pitt  was  undoubtedly  first  of  the 
three  men,  but  his  very  eminence  made  him  an 
object  of  suspicion  to  Newcastle,  and  he  had  not 
yet  overcome  the  dislike  of  the  King.  On  the 
whole  his  chances  were  probably  the  smallest, 
and  at  the  critical  moment  he  was  laid  up  with 
gout   at    Bath.     After    balancing   the   aims   and 


40  CHATHAM 

abilities  of  the  rivals,  Newcastle  decided  to  appeal 
to  Fox.  In  the  negotiations  which  followed,  the 
Duke's  foibles  were  conspicuously  shown.  He 
was  a  timid,  anxious  busybody,  industrious  and 
not  without  domestic  virtues,  but  filled  with  a 
consuming  passion  for  the  mean  and  multifarious 
details  of  bribery  and  patronage,  which  were 
regarded  as  essential  to  the  working  of  the 
Parliamentary  machine.  Fox  had  agreed  to  take 
the  Secretaryship  of  State  on  the  understanding 
that  it  carried  with  it  the  management  of  the 
House  of  Commons  and  the  control  of  the  secret 
service  money,  or,  to  put  it  more  plainly,  the 
distribution  of  bribes.  But  this  was  the  one 
department  of  government  with  which  Newcastle 
was  resolved  not  to  part ;  and  when  the  point  was 
made  clear  to  Fox,  he  refused  to  take  office  under 
such  restrictions.  Newcastle's  obvious  course  was 
to  turn  to  Pitt,  who  would  have  parted  as  readily 
with  the  administration  of  patronage  in  1754  as 
he  did  in  1757.  Instead  of  this,  the  Duke  gave 
the  leadership  to  a  nonentity  from  the  diplomatic 
service — Sir  Thomas  Robinson.  It  was  an  act  full 
of  audacity,  for  by  it  he  deliberately  discarded 
the  great  men  of  the  House  of  Commons,  but  it 
was  also  characteristically  short-sighted.  The 
selection  of  Robinson  was  really  a  manifesto  to 
the  effect  that  the  positions  of  the  two  Houses  of 
Parliament  were  to  be  reversed,  and  the  tradition 


•JHli    DCKE   OF    NtWCASTLE 
A/ler  the  porlrail  by  Hoare 


THE  HOUR  OF  CRISIS  41 

of  the  supremacy  of  the  Commons^  which  Walpole 
had  estabhshed,  ignored  by  carrying  on  the  real 
government  of  the  country  in  the  Lords.  It  was 
clear  that  common-sense  as  well  as  ambition 
would  unite  Pitt  and  Fox  in  resistance  to  this 
attempt  to  put  back  the  clock,  and  that  they 
would  sink  their  differences  in  order  to  make  it 
impossible. 

Pitt,  although  he  did  not  aspire  to  the  first 
place,  undoubtedly  took  the  total  passing  over  of 
his  claims  to  heart.  From  Bath  he  had  written 
to  Lyttelton  and  the  Grenvilles  on  Pelham's 
death : — 

"  My  dearest  friends, — 

"  The  shock  of  Mr.  Pelham's  death  has  affected 
me  so  powerfully  as  not  to  leave  me  in  a  proper 
condition  to  write.  I  am  sensibly  touched  with 
his  loss,  as  of  a  man,  upon  the  whole,  of  a  most 
amiable  composition ;  his  loss  as  a  Minister  is 
utterly  irreparable  in  such  circumstances  as 
constitute  the  present  dangerous  conjuncture  for 
this  country,  both  at  home  and  abroad.  .  .  .  My 
own  object  for  the  public  is  to  support  the  King 
in  quiet  as  long  as  he  may  have  to  live ;  and  to 
strengthen  the  hands  of  the  Princess  of  Wales,  as 
much  as  may  be,  in  order  to  maintain  her  power 
in  the  Government,  in  case  of  the  misfortune  of 
the  King's  demise.  The  means,  as  I  said,  suggest 
themselves — a  union  of  all  those  in  action  who 


42  CHATHAM 

are  really  united  in  their  wishes  as  to  the  object ; 
this  might  easily  be  effected,  but  it  is  my  opinion 
it  will  certainly  not  be  done."  ^ 

On  the  whole,  he  thought  Fox  stood  "  first  of 
any "  for  the  Chancellorship  of  the  Exchequer ; 
but  it  is  interesting  to  observe  that  Murray 
occurred  to  him  as  a  possible  alternative.  "  I  call 
this  an  idea  only ;  but  I  think  it  not  visionary, 
were  it  accompanied  by  proper  temperaments." 
In  a  letter  which  he  wrote  to  Richard  Grenville,^ 
now  Lord  Temple,  he  described  Fox's  position  as 
more  precarious  :  "  Fox,"  he  says,  "  is  odious,  and 
will  have  difficulty  to  stand  in  a  future  time." 
Other  passages  in  these  letters  make  it  clear  that 
he  expected  the  claims  of  his  little  party  of  the 
Grenvilles  to  be  substantially  recognised,  and  he 
gave  shrewd  advice  as  to  how  they  might  be 
furthered.  "  Give  me  leave,"  he  wrote  to  Temple, 
"  to  recommend  to  your  lordship  a  little  gather- 
ing of  friends  about  you  at  dinners,  without 
ostentation  ...  a  dinner  to  the  Yorkes^  very 
seasonable." 

Eventually  George  Grenville  obtained  the 
Treasurership  of  the  Navy,  Lyttelton  the  Cofferer- 
ship  of  the  Household;  and  Legge,  another  friend  of 
Pitt's,  the  Chancellorship  of  the  Exchequer.  Pitt 
himself  was  ignored.     Newcastle  and  Hardwicke, 

^  Grenville  Papers,  i.   Io6.  2  JhiJ^  j.  112. 

^  i.e.  Lord  Hardwicke  and  his  relatives. 


THE  HOUR  OF  CRISIS  43 

the  Lord  Chancellor,  both  seemed  to  realise  that 
this  required  explanation,  and  each  despatched  a 
long  apology  to  Pitt,  the  burden  of  which  was 
that  they  had  done  all  they  could  to  break  down 
the  King's  aversion,  that  an  impression  had  been 
made,  and  that  Pitt  should  not  give  up  hope  for 
the  future.  But  this  only  threw  him  into  deeper 
dejection,  and  he  replied  to  Hardwicke  with  one 
of  those  laments  about  the  Royal  disfavour  which 
show  him  at  his  weakest  and  his  worst : — 

"  All  ardour  for  public  business  is  really  extin- 
guished in  my  mind,  and  I  am  totally  deprived  of 
all  consideration  by  which  alone  I  could  have 
been  of  any  use.  The  weight  of  immovable 
Royal  displeasure  is  a  load  too  great  to  move 
under ;  it  must  crush  any  man ;  it  has  sunk  and 
broke  me.  I  succumb,  and  wish  for  nothing  but 
a  decent  and  innocent  retreat,  wherein  I  may  no 
longer,  by  continuing  in  the  public  stream  of  pro- 
motion, for  ever  stick  fast  aground,  and  afford 
to  the  world  the  ridiculous  spectacle  of  being 
passed  by  every  boat  that  navigates  the  same 
river."  ^ 

Brighter  events,  however,  before  long  chased 
away  his  melancholy.  He  remained  in  the 
country,  recovering  health,  and  seeking  consola- 
tion for  the  disappointment  of  his  ambition  among 
"  verdant  hills  and  sequestered  valleys."     In  his 

^  Chatham  Correspondence,  i.  105. 


44  CHATHAM 

private  life  this  was  a  most  eventful  summer,  for 
in  it  he  became  engaged  to  Hester  Grenville, 
the  sister  of  George  Grenville  and  Earl  Temple. 
They  were  married  in  November,  a  week  before 
Parliament  met. 

Their  surviving  correspondence  amply  disproves 
Shelbume's  assertion  that  there  was  no  sentiment 
in  the  marriage.  For  twenty-three  years  Pitt  and 
his  wife  lived  together  in  the  most  unbroken 
intimacy  of  affection.  Henry  Fox,  the  model 
husband,  in  this  respect  and  in  his  courage  alone 
resembling  Pitt,  did  not  write  more  ardently  and 
Tinremittingly  to  his  Lady  Caroline  than  did  Pitt 
to  Lady  Hester.  Alike  amid  the  splendid  triumphs 
of  his  administration,  and  the  anxieties  of  the  great 
political  campaign  for  the  Americans  in  his  last 
years,  Pitt  always  turned  for  full  enjoyment  and 
for  consolation  to  the  little  circle  at  Hayes  or 
Burton  Pynsent,  and  during  the  dark  hour  of  his 
eclipse  Lady  Hester  tended  him  with  unrelaxing 
care. 

On  the  meeting  of  Parliament  it  was  seen  that 
Pitt  and  Fox  were  prepared,  temporarily  at  least, 
to  act  in  common  and  indulge  their  resentment. 
Pitt,  who  it  must  be  remembered  still  held  office 
under  Newcastle,  gave  the  first  sign  of  rebellion 
in  a  debate  on  the  Berwick  election  petition  very 
early  in  the  session.  The  scene  was  characteristic, 
and    illustrates  Pitt's    extraordinary  command  of 


THE  HOUR  OF  CRISIS  45 

the  House  of  Commons.  Disputed  elections  were 
then,  according  to  invariable  custom,  decided  by 
a  party  vote  of  the  whole  House,  and  on  this  par- 
ticular occasion  honourable  members  were  listen- 
ing with  evident  sympathy  and  enjoyment  to 
stories  of  bribery  whose  truth  to  nature  their 
own  experience  could  attest.  Pitt,  who  had  been 
listening  in  the  gallery,  suddenly  descended  to 
the  floor  of  the  House,  and  in  a  few  minutes  con- 
verted his  hearers  from  jocularity  to  awe  by  a 
solemn  protest  against  such  trifling,  and  then 
startled  them  into  amazed  excitement  by  asking  if 
they  were  going  to  sit  simply  in  order  to  ''register 
the  arbitrary  edicts  of  one  too  powerful  a  subject."  ^ 
The  too  powerful  subject  was,  of  course,  Newcastle, 
whose  unhappy  lieutenant.  Sir  Thomas  Robinson, 
was  now  placed  in  the  most  ridiculous  position. 
Pitt  and.  Fox  united  to  make  his  life  intolerable, 
and  seldom  can  there  have  been  a  more  powerful 
oratorical  combination.  Pitt  annihilated  him  with 
lofty  rebuke  ;  Fox,  under  cover  of  mock  loyalty, 
delivered  ironical  attacks.  Still  Newcastle  did 
not  venture  to  dismiss  Pitt.  But  at  last,  fearing 
that  the  assault  was  being  pressed  too  nearly 
home,  he  approached  Fox  with  the  offer  of  a 
Cabinet  post  at  the  beginning  of  1755. 

The   negotiations   which    ensued   carried   Fox 

1  Fox   to   Hartington,   November    26,    1754  ;    IValdegrave 
Mcmoirt,  Appendix. 


46  CHATHAM 

into  the  Government  and  away  from  Pitt,  and  thus 
dissolved  their  short  -  hved  alliance.  It  had 
never  been  quite  whole-hearted.  Pitt's  own 
retrospect  of  it  may  be  found  in  the  diary  of 
Dodington,  to  whom  later  in  the  year  he  confided 
a  view  of  Fox's  conduct  which  shows  distinct 
traces  of  mortification.  "  He  (Pitt)  was  ready  in 
the  last  session  to  proceed  to  any  lengths  against 
the  Duke  of  Newcastle  ;  but,  when  it  came  to  the 
pinch,  Mr.  Fox  acknowledged  that  he  could  not, 
and  went  on,  through  the  whole  session,  com- 
promising everything  when  it  began  to  pinch — 
the  Reading  election  ;  the  linen  affair ;  and,  when 
Ireland  began  to  be  a  thorn,  Mr,  Fox's  great 
friend.  Lord  Hartington,  was  to  take  it  out ;  that 
by  these  means  Mr.  Fox  had  taken  the  smooth 
part  and  had  left  him  to  be  fallen  upon  ;  Fox  had 
risen  upon  his  shoulders,  but  he  did  not  blame 
him ;  and  he  only  showed  me  how  impossible  it 
was  for  two  to  act  together  who  did  not  stand 
upon  the  same  ground."  In  truth,  the  union  of 
Fox  and  Pitt,  though  more  defensible  than  that 
famous  coalition  some  thirty  years  afterwards 
between  Lord  North  and  Fox's  son,  was  one 
which  in  the  nature  of  things  could  not  per- 
manently endure. 

Yet  Pitt  must  not  now  be  regarded  as  standing 
quite  alone.  He  had  behind  him  the  whole 
influence  of  Leicester   House,  with  which  con- 


THE  HOUR  OF  CRISIS  47 

nection  he  had  once  more  entered  into  relations. 
Its  presiding  genius  was  now  the  Princess  Dowager. 
For  some  time  after  the  death  of  her  husband, 
Frederick  Prince  of  Wales,  she  had  practically 
ceased  to  mix  in  politics ;  but  now  the  King'^s 
design  to  marry  her  son  to  a  princess  of  Brunswick 
had  fired  all  her  maternal  jealousy  and  driven  her 
into  undisguised  opposition.  .  She  turned  all  the 
more  readily  to  Pitt  as  an  ally  because  he  had 
just  broken  with  Fox,  who  was  closely  connected 
with  her  sworn  foe  the  Duke  of  Cumberland. 

Such  was  Pitt's  position  at  a  moment  of 
immense  importance  in  history.  It  may  be  said 
without  exaggeration  that  the  destiny  of  half 
the  globe  was  at  stake.  Every  question  which 
had  been  left  open  at  the  Peace  of  Aix-la- 
Chapelle,  or  had  arisen  since,  was  now  ready  to 
be  determined.  In  the  East  had  just  been  seen 
the  astonishing  career  of  Dupleix.  That  great 
Frenchman  had  made  it  clear  that  there  was  no 
limit  to  the  domination  which  a  European  Power 
might  exercise  in  India.  The  English  had 
borrowed  his  weapons,  and,  aided  by  the  extra- 
ordinary abundance  of  talent  among  their  young 
officers  in  India,  above  all  by  the  daring  genius 
of  Clive,  they  had  defeated  him  and  become 
supreme  in  the  Camatic  themselves.  But  the 
contest  was  as  yet  by  no  means  over,  and  behind 
the  fate  of  the  Camatic  lay  the  fate  of  all  India, 


48  CHATHAM 

for  it  was  impossible  that  the  Europeans  in  the 
peninsula  should  stand  still. 

In  the  other  hemisphere  the  future  of  North 
America   awaited  decision.      Was    the    civilising 
power  of  that  great  continent  to  be  France  or 
England.''     The  early  histoiy  of  their  efforts  in 
America  had  been  a  rivalry  between  the  genius 
for  settlement  and  the  genius  for  exploration  and 
military  enterprise.     England   possessed  a  group 
of  states    stretching  along  the  seaboard,  which, 
amid  marked  differences  of  individuality,  showed 
in    their    prosperous    industry   and    the   bracing 
atmosphere  of  their  social  and   political   life  all 
the  promise  and  vitality  to  be  expected  from  the 
colonising  instincts   of  the   race.      France    com- 
bined paradoxically  vast  and  vague  possibilities 
with  a  narrow  and   almost  feudal  regime.     Her 
intrepid  explorers  and  devoted  missionaries  had, 
in  their  passage  through  the  wilderness  and  along 
the  great  rivers,  conceived  large  dreams  of  empire. 
They  saw  in  imagination  the   English   colonists 
confined    to    the    strip    of    coast    between    the 
Alleghanies  and  the  sea,  while  the  French,  con- 
trolling the  chief  arteries  of  the  continent,  the 
Ohio  and  the  Mississippi,  expanded  freely  from 
the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
and  exploited  the  heart  of  the  continent  and  the 
unknown  Far  West.      The   actual   basis   of  the 
French  was  Canada,  a   faithful   reproduction  of 


THE  HOUR  OF  CRISIS  49 

Old  France,  centralised,  military,  and  rigidly 
Catholic.  The  autocratic  power  wielded  over 
the  whole  dominion  by  great  governors  like 
Frontenac,  and  the  warlike  spirit  of  their  realm, 
made  it  a  formidable  foe  to  the  English  colonies, 
the  very  intensity  of  whose  local  patriotism 
dissuaded  them  from  general  combination  for 
defence.  Yet  it  was  the  English  who  were  the 
people  of  the  future,  and  were  to  take  and 
transform  into  reality  the  ideas  which  French 
genius  had  originated  but  was  by  the  medieval 
forms  of  French  government  forbidden  to  fulfil. 

The  pursuit  of  their  transcontinental  schemes 
by  the  French  took  practical  shape  in  the  project 
of  connecting  Canada  with  the  far  distant  outpost 
of  New  Orleans  in  the  south  by  a  chain  of  forts 
along  the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi.  This 
brought  them  into  collision  with  the  English 
settlers.  The  successive  French  garrisons  were 
Ticonderoga,  at  the  southern  end  of  Lake 
Champlain  ;  Fort  Niagara,  between  Lake  Ontario 
and  Lake  Erie ;  and  Fort  Duquesne,  at  the  head 
of  the  Ohio.  George  Washington  with  a  little 
force  from  Virginia  had  marched  on  the  latter  in 
1754,  but  had  been  surroimded  and  forced  to 
capitulate.  Next  year  General  Braddock  was 
despatched  against  it  with  a  force  that  included 
two  regiments  of  British  regulars.  Braddock,  a 
martinet  trained  in  the  school  of  the  Low 
4 


so  CHATHAM 

Countries,  was  helpless  before  the  strange 
phenomenon  of  bush  -  fighting,  and  when  am- 
bushed by  a  force  of  French  and  Indians  his 
troops  were  disastrously  swept  away. 

This  encounter  alone  would  have  brought 
about  a  European  rupture  between  France  and 
England,  but  in  the  meantime  there  had  been 
further  hostilities  as  well.  Boscawen  with  a 
British  fleet  had  started  in  pursuit  of  a  great 
French  squadron  that  was  sailing  for  Quebec, 
and  had  intercepted  and  captured  two  of  its 
vessels.  As  soon  as  the  news  of  this  was  brought 
to  Europe  the  French  Ambassador  was  recalled 
from  London.  Yet  there  was  no  declaration  of 
war.  The  French  Government  was  waiting  to 
put  England  still  further  in  the  wrong ;  the 
Ejiglish  Government  was  in  a  state  of  complete 
paralysis.  The  King  was  in  Hanovei*,  and 
Newcastle  was  weeping  and  waving  his  hands  at 
home.  His  indecision  and  incompetence  reached 
a  climax  when  the  question  arose  as  to  what 
instructions  should  be  given  to  Hawke,  who  was 
about  to  sail  with  a  new  fleet.  Finally,  an 
extraordinary  decision  was  arrived  at  by  which 
it  was  agreed  that  war  was  not  to  be  declared, 
but  that  Hawke  should  be  instructed  to  seize  all 
French  vessels. 

The  conflict  was  now  so  far  seen  to  be 
inevitable  that  England  began  to  look  about  her 


SIR    EDWAKD    HAWKE 

After  the  portrait  by  G.  Kitapton 


THE  HOUR  OF  CRISIS  51 

for  allies.  She  first  asked  Austria  to  join  her  in 
the  defence  of  the  Low  Countries  and  Hanover. 
Austria^  dissatisfied  with  the  assistance  given  by- 
England  in  the  last  war,  declined.  Then  the 
British  Government  turned  to  Russia,  and  in 
September  1755  Hanbury  Williams  concluded 
a  treaty  at  St.  Petei'sburg,  in  which  England 
agreed  to  take  into  her  pay  55,000  Russian 
troops  posted  on  the  Livonian  border.  The 
treaty  itself  was  destined  to  vanish  into  air,  but 
indirectly  it  procured  England  the  most  efficient 
ally  in  Europe.  For  Frederick  of  Prussia, 
hearing  of  its  consummation,  and  well  aware 
besides  of  the  sleepless  hostility  of  Maria  Theresa 
and  the  intrigues  of  Saxony,  saw  that  only 
prompt  action  could  prevent  his  being  crushed 
by  an  irresistible  European  combination.  Dis- 
trust of  France,  and  dread  of  Austria  and  Russia, 
decided  him.  He  made  overtures  to  England, 
and  on  January  I6,  1756,  was  signed  the  Treaty 
of  Westminster,  guaranteeing  the  neutrality 
of  Germany,  and  binding  England  and  Prussia, 
in  the  compact  phrase  of  Carlyle,  "to  attack 
jointly  any  and  every  armed  non-German  set- 
ting foot  on  German  soil."  This  action  on 
the  part  of  Frederick  produced  yet  another 
change  in  the  relations  of  the  Powers,  and  that 
one  of  the  most  startling  in  the  history  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  for  it  transformed  the  whole 


52  CHATHAM 

fabric      of     Continental      diplomacy.       France, 
abandoning    all    the    traditions    of    her   foreign 
policy,    became    by    the    Treaty    of    Versailles 
Austria's    ally.      Seven    years    before,     Kaunitz, 
Maria  Theresa's  Foreign  Minister,  had  pointed  out 
that  only  by  means  of  a  French  alliance  could 
Austria  recover   her   lost    territory  and    humble 
Prussia,  and  his    Sovereign  had  grasped  eagerly 
at  the  idea.     What  once  would  have  seemed  im- 
possible had  been  accomplished  by  the  untiring 
efforts    of    the    great    Austrian   diplomatist,    by 
the  conviction  of  France,  brought  home  to  her 
through  the  last  war,  that  contests  with  Austria 
were    costly   and    indecisive,    and    above   all   by 
Frederick's    last    move.       The    first    Treaty    of 
Versailles  between  the  two  countries  was  indeed 
merely    defensive,    binding    Austria    to    remain 
neutral  in  the  Franco-English  War,  and  binding 
France  to  leave  the  Austrian  Netherlands  intact. 
But  it  was  in  itself  a  diplomatic  revolution,  and 
it  formed  the  prelude   to   the  second  Treaty  of 
Versailles,    concluded    the    following    year,    by 
which  France  definitely  committed  herself  to  the 
Austro- Russian    schemes   for    the    partition    of 
Prussia.       , 

Thus  the  Continental  Powers  slowly  sorted 
themselves  in  view  of  war.  In  England,  too,  the 
lines  of  division  were  being  drawn  more  clearly. 
The  paramount  need  of  the  hour  was  a  Cabinet 


THE  HOUR  OF  CRISIS  53 

that  could  be  trusted  to  carry  on  the  war  with 
intelligence  and  vigour.  It  was  quite  evident 
that  this  was  too  much  to  expect  from  Newcastle. 
Accordingly,  on  the  one  side  stood  a  discredited 
Ministry ;  on  the  other  an  exasperated  people, 
and  the  apostle  of  efficiency,  Pitt.  Pitt  was  still 
Paymaster,  but  he  remained  in  the  attitude  of 
opposition  which  he  had  taken  up  during  his 
short  alliance  with  Fox.  Newcastle  endeavoured 
to  purchase  his  support,  or  even  his  silence,  with 
offers  of  further  promotion,  but  without  avail. 
"  Pitt,"  says  Lord  Waldegrave,  "  was  very 
explicit,  and  fairly  let  them  know  that  he 
expected  to  be  Secretary  of  State,  and  would 
not  content  himself  with  any  meaner  employ- 
ment." 1 

On  November  13,  1755,  at  the  reassembling 
of  Parliament,  Pitt  had  denounced  the  union 
of  Newcastle  and  Fox  in  a  famous  and  still 
tinforgotten  parallel.  They  were  the  Rhone  and 
Saone  of  politics ;  "  the  one  a  gentle,  feeble, 
languid  stream,  and,  though  languid,  of  no  depth  ; 
the  other  a  boisterous  and  impetuous  torrent ; 
but  different  as  they  are  they  meet  at  last." 
Five  days  later  he  was  dismissed,  together  with 
Legge,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  and 
George  Grenville.  This  placed  him  in  financial 
straits,  but  his  brother-in-law  Lord  Temple,  who, 

^  Waldegrave  Memoirs,  pp.  44-45. 


54  CHATHAM 

with  all  his  faults,  never  lacked  generosity,  came 
to  the  rescue.  The  day  after  Pitt's  dismissal  he 
wrote  to  Lady  Hester :  "  I  must  entreat  you  to 
make  use  of  all  your  interest  with  Mr.  Pitt  to 
give  his  brother  Temple  leave  to  become  his 
debtor  for  a  thousand  pounds  a  year  till  better 
times ;  Mr.  Pitt  will  never  have  it  in  his  power 
to  confer  so  great  an  obligation  upon,  dear  Lady 
Hester,  your  most  truly  affectionate  brother. 
Temple."  ^ 

Pitt's  hands  were  now  free,  and  he  was 
resolved  to  make  the  most  of  his  position.  The 
menace  of  French  invasion  brooded  over  the 
country,  and  the  only  expedient  of  defence  that 
the  Cabinet  could  think  of  was  the  importation 
of  Hessian  and  Hanoverian  defenders,  to  the 
shame  and  disgust  of  the  English  people.  Pitt 
spoke  as  a  statesman  and  a  patriot  when  he 
declared  for  a  national  militia  in  preference  to 
foreign  mercenaries.  He  appeared  in  a  new 
light  in  Parliament  by  introducing  a  lucid  and 
comprehensive  scheme  for  reviving  that  body, 
and,  though  his  Bill  was  rejected  at  the  beginning 
of  1756,  it  formed  the  substance  of  the  Militia 
Act  of  1757. 

Then  the  cloud  that  had  been  gathering  on  the 
northern  coast  of  France,  and  seemed  about  to 
burst  over  England,  disappeared  again,  and  it  was 

'  Grerfuille  Papers,  i.  149. 


THE  HOUR  OF  CRISIS  55 

seen  that  the  French  preparations  here  were  only 
an  elaborate  feint  to  disguise  a  descent  upon  the 
true  objective,  Minorca.  On  April  10,  1756,  a 
naval  squadron  under  La  Galissoniere,  with  trans- 
ports caiTying  an  army  of  16,000  men  under  the 
Due  de  Richelieu,  weighed  anchor  from  Toulon. 
Newcastle  and  his  colleagues  had  information  of 
these  movements  three  months  before,  but  they 
were  incredulous  and  criminally  apathetic.  Byng, 
with  a  wholly  inadequate  fleet,  was  not  despatched 
to  relieve  Minorca  till  April  7.  On  May  20  he 
encoxmtered  La  Galissoniere  off  Port  Mahon, 
and  after  a  doubtful  engagement  fell  back  again 
on  Gibraltar.  Blakeney,  a  veteran  of  eighty, 
held  out  dauntlessly  in  Fort  St.  Philip,  but  after 
Byng's  withdrawal  its  capture  became  only  a 
question  of  time.  On  June  28  the  British  were 
obliged  to  capitulate,  and  Minorca  fell  into  the 
hands  of  France. 

All  the  pent-up  fury  of  the  English  people 
broke  out  when  the  calamity  was  known.  There 
was  a  general  cry  for  a  victim,  and  Newcastle 
was  in  terror,  as  well  he  might  be.  Minorca  was 
not  the  only  catastrophe  of  this  unhappy  year. 
More  disasters  were  falling  upon  the  country  :  in 
June,  the  seizure  of  Calcutta  by  Suraj-ud-Dowlah, 
and  the  atrocity  of  the  Black  Hole ;  in  August, 
the  loss  of  Oswego. 

Pitt  at   this   crisis   described   Newcastle  with 


56  CHATHAM 

great  vividness  and  humour  as  a  child  driving  a 
go-cart  close  to  the  edge  of  a  precipice.  He  was, 
he  said,  bound  to  take  the  reins  out  of  his  hands. 
It  seemed  at  last  likely  that  he  would,  for  in  the 
autumn  of  1756  Newcastle  was  deprived  of  his 
two  ablest  subordinates.  Fox,  too  astute  to  stay 
in  a  falling  Government,  deserted  him  in  October, 
and  Murray  abandoned  the  House  of  Commons 
for  the  vacant  Chief  Justiceship  of  the  King's 
Bench.  Newcastle,  after  appealing  fruitlessly  to 
Pitt,  to  Grenville,  and  to  Egmont,  resigned  in 
November  and  brought  his  Ministry  to  an  end  not 
a  moment  too  soon.  The  King  then  commissioned 
Fox  to  form  a  Ministry  with  Pitt,  but  the  latter 
refused  to  act  with  his  rival.  Next  the  Duke  of 
Devonshire  was  appealed  to,  and  after  much 
negotiation  decided  definitely  for  Pitt  and  not 
for  Fox.  Pitt,  therefore,  now  for  the  first  time 
attained  high  office  as  Secretary  of  State.  Devon- 
shire was  First  Lord  of  the  Treasurj'^  and  titular 
leader ;  Temple  took  the  Admiralty,  and  George 
Grenville  the  Treasurership  of  the  Navy.  Legge 
became  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer. 


CHAPTER   IV 

CHATHAM    AS    WAR    MINISTER 

The  Devonshire-Pitt  Ministry — Cumberland  contrives  its 
fall — Administrative  anarchy — Coalition  of  Pitt  and 
Newrcastle — Fortunes  of  the  war — Campaigns  of  1758 — 
Brilliant  successes  of  1759 — Continued  victories  in  1760 
— Pitt  as  a  War  Minister — Accession  of  George  m — His 
political  partisanship — Opening  of  peace  negotiations — 
Pitt  and  Choiseul — Intrusion  of  Spain — Pitt's  "Advice 
to  the  King  " — The  Cabinet  refuses  to  follow  him,  and 
he  resigns. 

IT  was  now  to  be  seen  whether  Pitt  was  a  man 
of  action  or  a  mere  declaimer.  In  this  first 
short  Ministry  of  four  months  he  had  not  time  to 
do  more  than  lay  foundations,  but  what  he  did 
was  enough  to  show  that  a  new  spirit  had  been 
infused  into  the  Government.  The  army  estab- 
Hshment  was  largely  augmented,  and,  instead 
of  the  single  battalion  which  Newcastle  proposed 
to  despatch  to  America,  Pitt  sent  eight.  Most 
remarkable  of  his  measures  was  that  authorising 
the  raising  of  two  Highland  regiments  (Eraser's 

67 


58  CHATHAM 

and  Montgomery's).  They  were  not  the  first, 
for  the  Black  Watch  was  ah*eady  in  existence 
and  had  been  conspicuous  at  Fontenoy ;  but  no 
new  regiments  had  been  raised  since  the  Forty- 
five.  By  thus  boldly  ignoring  Jacobitism,  Pitt 
did  more  than  any  man  to  extinguish  it  as  a 
hostile  force.  He  drew  unhesitatingly  on  the 
magnificent  fighting  material  of  Scotland,  and 
diverted  the  clan  spirit  into  the  service  of  the 
country.  Though  these  particular  corps,  which 
had  been  suggested  to  him  as  specially  fitted  for 
the  American  campaign,  were  afterwards  dis- 
banded, a  precedent  was  set  by  their  formation ; 
and  they  were  the  lineal  forerunners  of  the 
splendid  regiments  which  are  still  with  us  and 
have  given  so  freely  of  Scottish  lives  and  Scottish 
valour  under  the  British  flag.  Pitt  was  un- 
feignedly  proud  of  them,  and  in  one  of  his 
American  speeches  nine  years  later  he  said  it 
was  his  boast  to  have  looked  for  merit  among  the 
mountains  of  the  north,  to  have  called  it  out,  and 
to  have  drawn  into  the  service  of  the  Crown  a 
hardy  and  intrepid  race. 

By  another  measure  a  militia  was  substituted 
for  the  intruding  Hessians  and  Hanoverians. 
Though  its  numbers  were  cut  down  by  the  House 
of  Lords  to  32,000 — half  its  proposed  strength — 
it  rid  the  country  of  an  incubus  and  set  free  the 
regulars  for   their   proper   function    of  a  foreign 


CHATHAM  AS  WAR  MINISTER      59 

service  army.  Finally  Pitt,  whom  nearer  know- 
ledge was  fast  converting  to  a  belief  in  Frederick 
and  in  the  possibilities  of  conquering  America  in 
Germany,  carried  the  subsidies  for  Prussia  and 
Hanover,  dismissing  all  charges  of  inconsistency 
with  his  accustomed  nonchalance. 

In  spite  of  these  practical  proofs  of  its  energy, 
the  position  of  the  Ministry  was  extremely  un- 
stable. On  one  point  Pitt,  and  Temple  with  him, 
stood  in  complete  opposition  to  the  cry  of  the 
people.  This  was  on  the  question  of  the  fate  of 
Byng.  The  finding  of  the  court-martial  upon 
him  was  that  he  had  not  done  his  utmost  to 
relieve  Minorca  or  destroy  the  French  squadron, 
and  tJie  Twelfth  Article  of  War  provided  no 
alternative  in  such  a  case  to  the  penalty  of  death. 
The  Ck)urt,  however,  added  to  the  sentence  a 
striking  recommendation  to  mercy,  setting  forth 
"  the  distresses  of  their  minds  "  at  the  sentence 
which  the  undue  severity  of  the  Article  obliged 
them  to  impose.  The  King,  the  late  Ministers, 
and  the  people  were  bent  on  disregarding  this 
plea  and  victimising  the  admiral.  Pitt  threw 
himself  into  the  breach,  and  with  unfaltering 
though  unavailing  courage  did  his  utmost  to 
shield  Byng  from  the  stonn  of  vengeance  that 
should  by  rights  have  fallen  on  the  head  of  the 
Ministry  which  sent  him  out. 

Yet  it  was  no  popular  dissatisfaction  that  now 


6o  CHATHAM 

threw  out  Pitt,  but  a  Court  intrigue.  The  King 
complained  that  Pitt  was  prolix  in  his  interviews, 
and  Temple  pertly  familiar,  and  he  was  quite 
prepared  to  listen  to  the  Duke  of  Cumberland 
when  the  latter  objected  to  taking  up  the 
command  in  Hanover  while  Pitt  held  office  at 
home.  Accordingly,  on  April  5,  1757,  Temple 
was  dismissed,  and  Pitt  and  Legge,  who  refused 
to  resign,  were  driven  out  directly  afterwards. 
The  Devonshire  -  Pitt  Ministry  was  no  more. 
Brief  as  had  been  its  tenure  of  power,  it  showed 
more  promise  of  vigorous  administration  than 
England  had  known  for  years.  It  also  centred 
the  hopes  of  the  country  on  Pitt  as  the  statesman 
of  the  future.  Now  the  rain  of  gold  boxes,  which 
Horace  Walpole's  phrase  has  made  historic,  de- 
scended on  him.  All  the  great  towns  offered 
him  their  freedom,  and  the  people,  long  so  torpid 
and  lethargic,  awoke  in  this  common  outburst  of 
sympathy  to  a  new  sense  of  national  life. 

For  eleven  weeks,  in  the  presence  of  a  great 
war,  there  was  complete  political  chaos.  Then 
at  the  end  of  June  Pitt  returned  to  power.  He 
could  not  be  kept  out  of  office,  but  the  problem  was 
how  to  keep  him  in.  Chesterfield's  mediation 
succeeded  in  effecting  an  alliance  between  him 
and  his  old  leader  Newcastle,  the  master  of 
Parliamentary  votes.  Thus  was  formed  the  great 
administration    to    which    Pitt    contributed    his 


CHATHAM  AS  WAR  MINISTER      6i 

genius,  and  Newcastle  his  indispensable  majority. 
Such  a  coalition  was  the  only  means  of  governing 
the  country  at  the  moment,  and  it  was  amply 
justified  by  results.  It  enabled  Pitt,  feeling  that 
the  ground  was  firm  under  him,  to  devote  himself 
exclusively  to  the  conduct  of  the  war.  Thus 
fortified,  he  entered  with  supreme  confidence  on 
his  work.  He  had  told  the  Duke  of  Devonshire 
that  he  could  save  the  country  and  that  no  one 
else  could.  This  was  not  the  intoxication  of 
vanity.  More  fully  than  any  of  his  rivals  he 
realised  the  greatness  of  the  task  before  him, 
but  he  felt  himself  not  unequal  to  it. 

Temple,  Legge,  and  Anson,  all  foxmd  places  in 
the  Ministry.  So,  most  singularly,  did  Fox.  He 
took  the  Paymastership,  frankly  accepting  it  as 
a  sinecure,  a  short  cut  to  wealth.  It  was  probably 
the  most  ignoble  decision  of  his  life ;  for  by  it 
he  deliberately  eifaced  himself  and  sat  down  in 
silence  as  a  subordinate  of  his  great  antagonist 
in  order  to  make  money.  Such  an  action  would 
have  been  venial  in  the  case  of  most  of  his  fellow- 
politicians  ;  but  Fox  is  too  great  a  man  to  be 
easily  forgiven. 

When  Pitt  came  back  to  office  the  war  was 
everywhere  in  full  blast.  Frederick  had  taken 
the  offensive  in  1756,  overrunning  Saxony,  captur- 
ing the  Saxon  army,  and  defeating  the  Austrians 
at  Lobositz.     In  1 757  armies  from  every  quarter  of 


62  CHATHAM 

Europe — French,  Austrian,  and  Russian — threat- 
ened him.  He  committed  to  Cumberland,  who 
came  over  in  the  spring,  the  problem  of  watching 
the  French  in  Germany,  while  he  himself  turned 
suddenly  on  Bohemia.  On  May  6  he  attacked 
the  Austrians  on  the  plateau  east  of  Prague,  de- 
feated them  after  a  fiercely  contested  struggle, 
and  beleaguered  the  city. 

The  siege  continued  till  the  middle  of  June, 
when  Frederick  encoiuitered  a  second  Austrian 
army  under  Daun  advancing  tardily  to  the  relief 
of  Prague.  Daun  stood  on  the  defensive,  strongly 
posted ;  but  he  owed  his  victory  over  Frederick 
on  this  occasion  mainly  to  the  stubbornness  of  a 
Saxon  colonel,  who  at  the  critical  moment  dis- 
obeyed his  order  to  retire.  The  battle  of  Ivolin, 
however  won,  was  decisive.  It  compelled 
Frederick  to  raise  the  siege  of  Prague,  and 
robbed  him  of  all  the  fruits  of  his  earlier 
victory.  In  July  disaster  overtook  Cumberland. 
He  was  defeated  by  the  French  at  Hastenbeck, 
and  on  September  8  signed  the  Convention  of 
Klosterseven,  by  which  the  allied  army  evacuated 
Hanover. 

If  the  outlook  on  the  Continent  was  dark,  the 
news  from  America  was  no  less  mortifying.  Lord 
Loudoun's  expedition  against  Louisburg  was  never 
seriously  pressed,  and  Montcalm,  following  up  his 
success  in  the  previous  year  at  Oswego,  captured 


CHATHAM  AS  WAR  MINISTER      63 

Fort  William  Heniy  in  August  1757.  It  was 
little  wonder  that  for  a  moment  Pitt's  mind 
sank  into  despondency.  "  The  day  is  come/'  he 
wrote  to  the  British  Ambassador  at  Madrid, 
''when  the  very  inadequate  benefits  of  the 
Treaty  of  Utrecht,  the  indelible  reproach  of  the 
last  generation,  are  become  the  necessary  but 
almost  unattainable  wish  of  the  present."  ^  He 
even  resorted  to  offering  Gibraltar  to  Spain  if  she 
would  assist  in  the  recovery  of  Minorca. 

Nor  could  the  nation  as  yet  take  much  comfort 
from  his  own  accession  to  power,  for  the  first 
enterprise  planned  by  him  proved  an  almost 
unrelieved  failure.  On  September  8  a  force  of 
ten  battalions  under  Sir  John  Mordaunt,  who  had 
Conway,  Comwallis,  and  Wolfe  as  his  subordinates, 
started  for  Rochefort  under  the  escort  of  Sir 
Edward  Hawke  with  sixteen  sail  of  the  line, 
three  frigates,  five  sloops,  "bomb  ketches,  fire 
ships,  and  busses."  Thanks  mainly  to  the 
gallantry  of  Richard  Howe,  who  commanded  the 
Magnanime,  the  fortifications  of  the  He  d' Aix  were 
destroyed  and  the  small  island  itself  taken ;  but 
the  main  object  of  the  expedition,  the  attack  on 
Rochefort,  was  abandoned  in  view  of  the  French 
preparations  for  its  defence.  Amid  general 
disgust  and  much  recrimination  Pitt's  armada 
came  home.     His  only  ovei't  commentary  on  its 

^  Chatham  Correspondence,  i.  25^* 


64  CHATHAM 

proceedings  was  to  promote  Wolfe,  who  "  on  the 
day  after  we  had  taken  the  island  of  Aix  publicly 
offered  to  do  the  business  with  five  hundred 
men  and  three  ships  only." 

In  spite  of  these  discouragements  Pitt  decided 
to  go  forward  and  not  back.  Cumberland  had 
now  returned  in  disgrace  from  the  Continent. 
Pitt  endeavoured  with  much  generosity  to  shield 
his  old  enemy  from  the  anger  of  the  King,  reply- 
ing, when  his  Majesty  asserted  that  he  had  given 
the  Duke  no  authorisation  to  sign  a  treaty,  "  But 
full  powers.  Sir,  very  full  powers."  But  though 
he  was  prepared  to  do  his  best  for  Cumberland 
he  had  no  intention  of  ratifying  his  policy,  which 
Prussia  was  already  stigmatising  loudly  as  a 
desertion.  On  his  recommendation,  England 
repudiated  the  convention  and  took  the  Hano- 
verian army  into  her  pay.  If  its  leadership  had 
been  entrusted  again  to  Cumberland,  or  a  com- 
mander of  his  school,  history  might  have  repeated 
itself;  but  Pitt  discovered  in  Prince  Ferdinand 
of  Brunswick,  who  was  now  put  at  its  head,  a 
great  general  and  an  efficient  ally. 

As  if  to  justify  Pitt's  onward  policy,  news  of 
successes  began  now,  at  the  end  of  1757,  at  last 
to  come  in.  Before  Parliament  reassembled  on 
December  1  it  was  known  in  England  that 
Frederick  had  scattered  to  the  winds  the  great 
composite  army  of  Soubise  and  Prince  Hildburg- 


CHATHAM  AS  WAR  MINISTER      65 

hausen  at  Rossbach,  thereby  ridding  Prussia  of 
the  menace  of  a  French  invasion  from  the  west. 
Still  more  momentous,  though  as  yet  its  full 
significance  could  only  have  been  dimly  gauged, 
was  the  tidings  of  Clive's  victory  of  Plassey,  which 
had  been  won  in  June. 

The  estimates  for  1758,  which  were  now  sub- 
mitted to  Parliament,  showed  that  Pitt  was 
determined  to  prosecute  the  war  with  all  possible 
vigour.  The  British  army  was  raised  to  a  total 
strength  of  practically  100,000  men,  30,000  being 
allotted  to  service  in  the  colonies  and  Gibraltar. 
The  personnel  of  the  navy  was  also  increased. 
Frederick  was  voted  an  annual  subsidy  of 
X670,000,  a  sum  most  admirably  invested.  On 
these  foundations  a  comprehensive  campaign  1 
in  America  was  planned  for  the  next  year. 
General  Abercrombie  was  substituted  for  Lord 
Loudoun  in  the  chief  command.  Three  junior 
officers  of  marked  ability — Amherst,  Lord  Howe, 
and  Wolfe  —  occupied  conspicuous  posts.  A 
triple  attack  was  to  be  delivered  against  Canada. 
In  the  north,  Amherst,  with  Wolfe  as  one  of  his 
brigadiers,  was  to  descend  on  Cape  Breton  Island 
and   capture   Louisburg ;    in   the   centre,   Aber- 

1  An  admirably  lucid  account  of  this,  as  of  the  other 
British  operations  in  the  Seven  Years'  War,  is  given  by  Mr. 
Fortescue  in  his  History  of  the  British  Army,  to  which  I  am 
much  indebted  in  this  chapter. 

5 


66  CHATHAM 

crombie,  with  Howe  under  him,  was  to  advance 
upon  Ticonderoga,  along  the  most  direct  Hne 
to  Montreal  and  Quebec ;  and  in  the  south. 
Brigadier  Forbes  was  to  march  against  Fort 
Duquesne.  Boscawen  convoyed  the  troops  with 
a  great  fleet  to  America,  while  Hawke  with  one 
squadron  watched  the  French  Atlantic  ports, 
and  Admiral  Osborne  with  another  blockaded  the 
exit  from  Toulon. 

On  June  8,  1758,  Wolfe  forced  a  landing  on 
the  rock-bound  coast  of  Louisburg,  and  on  July 
27  the  fortress,  after  an  incessant  cannonade 
from  Amherst's  batteries,  surrendered.  "The 
Dunkirk  of  America,"  the  great  naval  base  of 
France  in  the  western  seas,  had  passed  for  ever 
from  her  hands.  It  was  here  and  now  that  Wolfe 
uttered  his  famous  prophecy  about  North  America : 
"This  will  some  time  hence  be  a  vast  empire, 
the  seat  of  power  and  learning.  Nature  has 
refused  it  nothing,  and  there  will  grow  a  people 
out  of  our  little  spot,  England,  that  will  fill  this 
vast  space  and  divide  this  portion  of  the  globe 
with  the  Spaniards,  who  are  possessed  of  the 
other  half." 

Meanwhile  Aberci'ombie  had  moved  upon 
Ticonderoga.  On  July  5  his  imposing  force,  1 6,000 
strong,  rowed  up  Lake  George,  and  next  day 
his  army  landed  on  the  west  shore  of  the  chan- 
nel uniting  Lake  George  with  Lake  Champlain, 


WOLFE 
From  the  portrait  by  Schaak  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery 


CHATHAM  AS  WAR  MINISTER      67 

and  the  leading  column  encountered  the  French 
in  the  forest.  Here  an  unfortunate  calamity 
overtook  the  expedition.  In  the  skirmish  Howe 
fell,  and  his  loss  was  irreparable.  He  was  the 
soul  of  the  enterprise,  and  more  fully  than  any 
other  British  officer  he  had  imbibed  the  principles 
of  colonial  warfare,  which  he  learnt  from  the  great 
American  ranger  Rogers.  Not  only  in  America 
but  in  Europe  he  was  the  British  army's  pride. 
Pitt  wrote  on  hearing  of  his  death :  "  The  loss 
of  Lord  Howe  afflicts  me  with  more  than  a 
public  sorrow.  He  was,  by  the  imiversal  voice 
of  army  and  people,  a  character  of  ancient  times  ; 
a  complete  model  of  military  virtue  in  all  its 
branches."  ^  Worse  still  was  to  follow.  On  July  8 
Abercrombie,  himself  lingeilng  at  a  distance  from 
the  field,  delivered  a  disastrous  frontal  attack 
upon  the  breastworks  and  almost  impenetrable 
abattis  of  Ticonderoga.  The  British  loss  was 
terrific ;  the  Black  Watch  alone  left  nearly  five 
hundred  on  the  field.  Montcalm  with  a  little  force 
of  not  4000  men  had  rolled  away  Abercrombie's 
army  in  disastrous  confusion.  One  gleam  of 
success,  however,  lit  up  these  central  operations 
before  they  closed.  In  August,  Bradstreet,  a  New 
Englander,  took  a  flying  column  from  the  main 
army  and  captured  Fort  Frontenac  on  Lake 
Ontario.     This  cut  the  French  line  of  communica- 

^  Pitt  to  Grenville,  Grenville  Papers,  i.  26z. 


68  CHATHAM 

tion,  and  made  possible  the  success  of  the  thh'd 
line  of  attack — that  upon  Fort  Duquesne. 

For  this.  Brigadier  Forbes  had  Montgomery's 
Highlanders  and  a  motley  host  of  provincials,  far 
inferior  in  quality  to  those  with  Abercrombie. 
Forbes  was  himself  a  Scot,  trained  first  in  the 
school  of  Continental  and  then  of  colonial  war ; 
full  of  expedients  and  of  enterprise,  as  his  prefer- 
ence of  the  short  untrodden  route  by  Pennsylvania 
to  the  longer  but  familiar  road  to  Fort  Duquesne 
showed.  On  this  expedition  he  displayed 
wonderful  tenacity.  Racked  by  an  internal 
disease  so  painful  that  he  had  to  be  carried  on  a 
litter,  he  pushed  on  through  rain  and  snow  across 
the  mountains  until  in  the  late  autumn  he  reached 
his  goal.  Bradstreet's  capture  of  Fort  Frontenac 
had  delivered  Fort  Duquesne  into  his  hands,  for 
the  French  commander,  finding  his  supplies  cut 
off,  was  obliged  to  evacuate  it.  On  November  25 
Forbes  took  possession  of  the  abandoned  post, 
reehristening  it  Pittsburg. 

Meanwhile  in  Europe  Prince  Ferdinand,  who 
had  taken  over  the  allied  army  towards  the  end 
of  1757,  steadily  drove  back  the  French,  and  on 
June  23,  1758,  completely  defeated  them  at 
Crefeldt.  This  opportune  confirmation  of  Pitt's 
policy  determined  him  to  engage  still  more 
vigorously  in  the  German  War.  "  We  are  send- 
ing,"   he   wrote   to    Grenville   directly  after  it. 


CHATHAM  AS  WAR  MINISTER      69 

''twelve  squadrons  of  English  cavalry  to  this 
glorious  school  of  war."  ^  A  few  days  later  it 
was  decided  to  send  infantry  as  well,  and  the 
total  number  of  reinforcements  was  more  than 
tripled. 

Frederick  in  this  year  encountered  the  Russians 
for  the  first  time.  The  victory  of  Leuthen  over 
the  Austrians  (December  5,  1757)  had  given 
Silesia  into  his  hands ;  and  he  now  turned  on  the 
great  Russian  army,  which  had  been  slowly 
advancing  westwards  through  Prussia,  and  in  a 
three  days'  battle  at  the  end  of  August  defeated 
it  after  much  carnage  at  Zorndorf.  Though 
during  his  absence  the  Austrians  again  assailed 
Silesia  and  Saxony,  and  though  he  was  severely 
checked  by  Daun  at  Hochkirchen  in  October,  he 
succeeded  with  consummate  adroitness  in  clearing 
both  countries  before  the  end  of  the  year. 

Pitt's  attention  was  by  no  means  exclusively 
absorbed  by  the  Canadian  and  the  German  Wars. 
In  the  course  of  1758  he  sent  out  two  expeditions 
to  the  Guinea  coast,  and  captured  the  French 
West  African  settlements  of  Goree  and  Senegal. 
With  less  success  he  resumed  nearer  home  his 
raids  on  the  French  coast.  Two  elaborate  attacks 
were  designed — one  upon  St.  Malo  and  one  on 
Cherbourg.  The  first  was  quite  abortive,  and, 
though  the  second  succeeded  in  destroying  the 

^  Grenvtlte  Papers,  i.  244. 


70  CHATHAM 

docks  and  shipping  of  Cherbourg,  it  was  marred 
by  a  costly  reverse  to  the  British  infantry  by 
land. 

These  descents  on  France  were  by  far  the 
least  successful  part  of  Pitt's  policy,  and  whatever 
moral  effect  they  may  have  produced  on  the 
French  was  probably  more  than  counterbalanced 
by  the  loss  in  time,  life,  and  money  which  they 
occasioned  to  the  British  army.  Yet  the  record 
of  1758  was  on  the  whole  a  shining  testimony  to 
Pitt.  A  great  step  forward  had  been  taken  in 
America ;  in  Germany  a  general  had  been  dis- 
covered for  the  allies  in  Prince  Ferdinand,  and 
Frederick,  our  ally,  was  contending  indomitably 
against  vast  odds ;  while  the  successes  in  West 
Africa  foreshadowed  still  further  colonial  ac- 
quisitions. 

If  1758  had  been  successful,  1759  was  glorious. 
English  history  hardly  records  a  more  memorable 
year.  For  America  Pitt  had  again  devised  a 
great  scheme  of  operations.  Amherst,  who  had 
been  appointed  to  the  chief  command  in  place  of 
Abercrombie,  was  to  advance,  as  the  latter  had 
tried  to  do,  northwards  by  Ticonderoga  and 
Crown  Point.  Wolfe  was  to  move  directly  on 
Quebec,  and  it  was  intended  that  Amherst,  when 
his  own  work  was  done,  should  join  his  sub- 
ordinate there  or  divert  French  attention  by  an 
attack    on    Montreal.     Amherst's    march   proved 


CHATHAM  AS  WAR  MINISTER      71 

quite  successful  as  far  as  it  went,  but  it  was  too 
slow.  The  French  fell  back  before  him,  abandon- 
ing Ticonderoga  and  Crown  Point,  and  both  these 
coveted  posts  passed  into  his  hands.  Another 
British  column  captured  Fort  Niagara,  thus  finally- 
severing  Canada  from  the  French  outposts  in  the 
west.  But  it  was  now  August,  and,  by  the  time 
Amherst  was  ready  to  move  forward  again  from 
Crown  Point,  the  campaigning  season  was  almost 
over.  The  diversion  could  not  be  executed,  and 
the  northern  army  was  left  to  fight  its  battles  by 
itself. 

There  is  not  space  here,  nor  perhaps  is  there 
need,  to  narrate  once  more  the  heroic  and  familiar 
tale  of  Wolfe.  The  skilful  navigation  of  the  St. 
Lawrence,  followed  by  the  long  and  apparently 
hopeless  leaguer  of  Quebec  ;  the  bombardment  of 
the  city ;  the  daring  passage  of  the  fleet  into  the 
upper  channel  of  the  river ;  Wolfe's  abortive 
attack,  wrecked  by  the  impetuosity  of  his 
grenadiers,  upon  the  French  lines  at  Beauport ; 
his  illness  and  recovery ;  the  landing  by  night  at 
the  Anse  du  Foulon,  and  the  appearance  of 
British  troops  on  the  tableland  in  the  dim  light 
of  dawn ;  the  infatuated  decision  of  the  French  to 
give  battle ;  the  triumph  of  discipline  by  which 
the  British  reserved  their  fire  and  then  delivered 
a  volley,  the  blasting  effect  of  which  has  hardly  a 
parallel  in  war;   Wolfe's  fall  in   the  moment  of 


72  CHATHAM 

victory, — all  this  is  one  of  the  best-known  passages 
in  the  military  annals  of  our  race.  Indescribable 
elation  was  felt  in  England  at  the  news  of  the 
battle  of  Quebec,  mixed  with  mourning  for  the 
loss  of  Wolfe.  This  was  but  the  bare  tribute  due 
to  an  achievement  which  determined  the  history 
of  a  continent  and  produced  results  the  full  and 
final  operation  of  which  we  can  hardly  even  yet 
foresee. 

Wolfe  had  owed  not  a  little  of  his  success  to 
the  admirable  co  -  operation  of  the  navy,  and 
eveiywhere  in  this  year  the  supremacy  of  British 
sea-power  became  apparent.  France,  ignoring 
that  supremacy,  had  conceived  the  design  of 
invading  England  and  Scotland — a  design  of 
which  Thurot's  momentary  seizure  of  Cai-rick- 
fergus  in  1760  proved  the  only  outcome.  The 
main  scheme  depended  on  the  junction  of  the 
Toulon  squadron  with  that  of  Brest.  This  was 
prevented  by  Boscawen,  who  gave  chase  to  the 
French  Mediterranean  fleet  when  it  slipped  out 
in  August,  and  crushed  it  on  the  Portuguese 
coast  at  Lagos.  The  crowning  blow  was  delivered 
by  Hawke  in  November.  Gales  had  driven  him 
into  Torbay  for  shelter,  and  allowed  Conflans 
with  the  Brest  squadron  to  escape.  Returning, 
he  followed  the  French  fleet  with  superb  coolness 
into  the  reefs  and  shoals  of  Quiberon,  and  there, 
in  a  raging  storm  and  formidable  sea,  ground  the 


CHATHAM  AS  WAR  MINISTER      73 

enemy  to  pieces  on  a  lee  shore.  Few  naval 
victories  have  been  more  marvellously  snatched 
from  forbidding  circumstances. 

In  the  Eastern  seas  also  the  influence  of  the 
British  navy  was  decisive.  This  was  the  last 
phase  of  the  struggle  for  the  dominance  of  India, 
in  which  both  the  French  power  and  the  Dutch 
were  to  fall ;  but  England's  success  would  have 
been  impossible  but  for  her  mastery  of  the  sea. 
It  was  this  that  enabled  her  to  throw  reinforce- 
ments into  India  at  the  hour  of  need,  and  the 
unflagging  persistence  of  Pococke,  who  com- 
manded the  British  fleet  on  the  Coromandel 
coast,  drove  the  French  squadron  under  d'Ache 
from  Indian  waters,  and  thus  sealed  the  fate  of 
Lally's  efforts  by  land.  In  the  military  operations 
of  1759  in  India  the  British  name  that  stands  out 
most  prominently  is  that  of  Colonel  Forde.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  year  he  was  campaigning 
in  the  Northern  Sirkars.  Capturing  Masulipatam 
and  its  French  garrison  in  the  face  of  tremendous 
odds,  he  destroyed  by  his  victory  French  influence 
at  the  court  of  Haidarabad.  In  the  autumn  he 
went  back  to  Bengal,  and  there,  at  Chander- 
nagore  and  Badara,  he  twice  defeated  the  Dutch, 
and  shattered  for  ever  the  hopes  which  they 
had  cherished  of  rebuilding  their  ascendency. 

In  the  long  tale  of  Imperial  and  maritime 
achievements  the  first  great  success  in  the  West 


74  CHATHAM 

Indies  must  not  be  forgotten.  Its  record  is  one 
of  the  romances  of  the  war.  Forbes's  expedition 
to  Fort  Duquesne,  Wolfe's  triumph  at  Quebec, 
Forde's  storming  of  Masulipatam,  were  not 
carried  out  in  the  teeth  of  more  deterring 
obstacles  than  the  conquest  of  Guadaloupe  by 
Harrington  and  his  indefatigable  subordinates. 
After  three  months  of  unflagging  effort  the 
island  was  subjugated  at  the  beginning  of  May. 

In  Europe  the  year  was  made  illustrious  by 
Prince  Ferdinand's  victory  of  Minden.  It  was 
marred  by  Sackville's  disgraceful  inertia,  "  when 
the  moment  came,  and  the  man  was  not  there, 
except  in  that  foggy,  flabby,  and  for  ever  ruinous 
condition."  ^  But  not  even  Sackville's  short- 
comings could  dim  the  glory  won  by  the  British 
infantry  in  their  advance — almost  as  astonishing 
to  onlookers  as  the  Light  Brigade's  charge  at 
Balaclava — which  pulverised  the  seventy-three 
squadrons  of  French  cavalry  massed  in  the  centre 
of  the  hostile  line.  Ferdinand's  success  was  in- 
valuable to  Frederick,  who  was  now  struggling 
desperately  against  the  Russians,  and  in  the  same 
August  suff'ered  the  fearful  defeat  of  Kunersdorf. 

Frederick's  straits  and  Wolfe's  death  were  the 
only  misfortunes  which  chequered  this  extra- 
ordinary year.  Canada  had  been  practically 
gained,  British  supremacy  in  India  was  assured, 

^  Carlyle,  Frederick  the  Great,  bk.  xix.  ch.  3. 


CHATHAM  AS  WAR  MINISTER      75 

and  the  conquest  of  the  West  Indies  was  begun ; 
while  in  Europe  both  on  land  and  sea,  at  Minden 
and  at  Quiberon,  England  had  won  glorious 
laurels.  She  stood  indisputably  first  among  the 
Powers ;  never  before  had  she  been  so  great.  It 
was  no  inappropriate  coincidence  that  still  fur- 
ther ennobled  1759,  already  so  illustrious,  by  the 
names  of  the  great  men  who  were  bom  in  it — 
the  younger  Pitt,  the  poet  Bums,  and  Wilberforce 
the  Parliamentarian  and  philanthropist. 

In  1760  the  tide  of  success  seemed  only  to 
rise  higher.  Pitt's  estimates  for  the  year  had 
provided  for  a  fresh  augmentation  of  the  army, 
and  men  and  money  were  unsparingly  voted.  In 
Canada  he  meant  to  reap  the  fruits  of  the 
victories  of  the  previous  year  and  destroy  the 
last  strongholds  of  French  power.  With  this 
object  he  planned  a  concentric  attack  upon 
Montreal.  The  whole  movement  was  excellently 
organised  by  Amherst.  At  the  beginning  of 
September  three  British  forces — his  own,  which 
had  descended  the  St.  Lawrence  from  the  west ; 
Murray's,  which  had  come  up  the  river  from 
Quebec  ;  and  Haviland's,  which  had  advanced  by 
Lake  Champlain  from  the  south — united  before 
Montreal ;  and  before  this  massed  army  of  1 7,000 
men  the  French  gari-ison,  hardly  more  than  2000 
strong,  was  helpless.  On  September  8  the  city 
surrendered,  and  Canada  was  won. 


76  CHATHAM 

In  the  East  Eyre  Coote  fought  on  January 
22  the  decisive  battle  of  Wandewash,  which 
robbed  France  of  Madras.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  next  year  followed  the  fall  of  Pondicherry, 
closing  Lally's  tempestuous  Indian  career,  and 
annihilating  the  last  vestige  of  French  power  in 
the  peninsula.  In  Europe  Prince  Ferdinand 
obtained  two  brilliant  successes  at  Emsdorf  and 
Warburg,  the  British  cavalry  on  both  occasions 
behaving  with  great  dash  and  gallantry. 

We  have  been  chronicling  the  mere  outlines 
of  an  era  of  unexampled  triumphs.  The  bare 
facts  are  sufficient  to  force  on  the  mind  some 
conception  of  Pitt's  abilities  as  an  organiser  of 
victory ;  but  it  will  not  be  out  of  place  here  to 
dwell  somewhat  more  fully  on  what  is  genei-ally 
agreed  to  be  one  of  his  chief  titles  to  enduring 
fame.  The  genius  of  a  great  War  Minister  may 
be  primaiily  political  or  primarily  military.  He 
may  conceive  a  large  national  policy  involving  an 
appeal  to  arms,  and  preside  over  its  execution; 
or  he  may  be  a  master  of  the  technique  of 
military  detail,  a  great  departmental  chief,  and 
an  expert  in  the  art  of  war.  Bismarck  may  be 
taken,  broadly  speaking,  as  an  historic  example 
of  the  first  class,  Louvois  of  the  second.  Pitt 
cannot  strictly  be  compared  to  either,  for  in 
many  respects  he  played  the  part  of  both. 
Bismarck    could    trust   implicitly   to   Roon    and 


CHATHAM  AS  WAR  MINISTER      77 

Moltke  to  forge  and  use  his  instrument  of  war  ; 
Pitt  had,  if  not  to  create,  at  least  to  resuscitate 
an  army,  and  then  to  supervise  its  operations. 
Pitt,  again,  was  the  supreme  director  of  British 
policy  during  his  administration,  whereas  Louvois 
was  but  the  agent  of  Louis  xiv. 

Pitt's  revival  of  the  British  army  first  claims 
attention.  When  he  came  into  office  he  found 
depleted  garrisons  and  a  dispirited  service. 
With  each  year  of  his  administration  he  effected 
a  progressive  increase  in  the  numbers  of  the 
araiy ;  and  even  more  valuable  than  the  aug- 
mentation itself  was  the  character  of  the  steps 
which  he  took  in  order  to  attain  it.  Mention 
has  been  already  made  of  his  two  most  con- 
spicuous steps  in  this  direction.  By  utilising 
the  militia  for  home  defence  he  strengthened 
automatically  the  striking  power  of  the  regular 
army  abroad.  By  the  enlistment  of  Highlanders 
he  permanently  widened  the  area  of  recruiting. 
But  all  such  measures  might  have  proved 
ineffective  if  Pitt  had  failed  to  find  leaders  for 
his  big  battalions,  and  it  is  a  true  instinct  which 
has  fastened  on  his  selection  of  officers  as  a 
matter  of  the  first  importance.  Wolfe  is  of  course 
the  classic  instance ;  but  most  of  the  other  pro- 
minent commanders  in  Canada — Amherst,  Howe, 
Murray,  and  Monckton — were  also  Pitt's  men. 
He  may  be  said  to  have  set  a  new  standard  for 


78  CHATHAM 

the  British  officer,  the  only  standard  which  can 
ever  be  of  service  to  an  army  like  our  own.  The 
ideal  of  enterprise  and  resource  and  adaptability 
to  the  immense  variety  of  physical  conditions 
that  presents  itself  to  an  army,  which,  like  our 
own,  has  to  campaign  in  every  quarter  of  the 
globe,  was  for  the  first  time  comprehensively 
outlined  in  the  days  of  Pitt. 

The  narrative  of  operations  will  have  made  it 
clear  that  Pitt,  though  essentially  a  statesman, 
had  yet  to  perform  some  of  the  chief  func- 
tions which  we  usually  associate  with  a  modem 
General  Staff.  He  had  indeed  his  expert  advisers, 
Ligonier  and  Anson,  but  his  was  the  directing 
brain.  The  intrusion  of  a  civilian,  even  of  a 
civilian  of  genius,  into  the  sphere  of  war  could 
hardly  be  hoped  to  escape  altogether  without 
disaster.  And,  as  we  have  seen,  Pitt  was  oc- 
casionally at  fault.  His  series  of  raids  on  the 
French  coast  was  a  costly  mistake.  His  Canadian 
schemes  for  1758  and  1759,  involving  the  most 
punctual  and  accurate  co  -  operation  of  all 
concerned,  made  little  or  no  allowance  for  the 
inevitable  obstacles  interposed  by  climate,  and 
the  difficulties  of  transport  in  the  vast  wilder- 
ness which  formed  the  scene  of  war.  Nor  does 
it  appear  that  he  was  sufficiently  careful  to 
economise  life,  and  so  lessen  the  drain  caused  by 
a  struggle  of  unprecedented  dimensions. 


CHATHAM  AS  WAR  MINISTER      79 

But  though  these  were  eiTors  of  significance, 
they  were  still  errors  of  detail.  Such  mistakes 
are  the  inevitable  penalty  that  has  to  be  paid  for 
entrusting  the  control  of  an  imperfectly  organised 
system  to  civilian  hands.  They  weigh  as  little 
by  the  side  of  Pitt's  work  in  that  higher  region 
where  statesmanship  and  strategy  merge  in  one 
another.  Here  he  was  unsurpassed.  To  his  firm 
grasp  of  the  two  cardinal  factors  in  the  situation 
modern  England  owes  her  empire.  He  saw  that 
the  contest  with  France  was  one  for  world-wide 
ascendency,  and  that  its  true  arena  lay  in  the 
colonies  and  on  the  sea.  At  the  same  time  he 
soon  discerned  the  possibility  of  conquering 
America  in  Germany,  to  use  his  own  immortal 
epigram.  He  played  skilfully  and  successfully 
on  the  besetting  French  passion  for  Continental 
war.  France  allowed  herself  to  be  dragged  at 
Austria's  chariot-wheels ;  she  squandered  her  re- 
sources on  campaigns  that  did  not  concern  her,  and 
starved  her  garrisons  over  sea.  Pitt,  when  he  saw 
that  Frederick  and  Ferdinand  were  to  be  trusted, 
sent  men  and  money  in  an  ever-increasing  ratio 
to  the  Continent.  But  he  never  lost  sight  of  the' 
fact  that  the  German  War  was  only  valuable  to 
England  as  a  diversion,  and  that  her  real  prize 
was  to  be  the  maritime  empire  which  was  falling 
from  the  hands  of  France. 

It   is   a   matter   of    tradition    that    to   secure 


8o  CHATHAM 

efficiency  of  administration  he  ruled  all  the 
public  departments  with  coercive  sway.  He 
threatened  their  chiefs  with  impeachment  if  they 
should  be  found  wanting,  and  he  had  no  scruples 
about  making  the  Board  of  Admiralty  sign 
despatches  the  contents  of  which  they  were  not 
allowed  to  see.  In  the  hands  of  anyone  else  such 
methods  must  have  led  to  instant  and  irretrievable 
calamity ;  but  Pitt  was  no  ordinary  man.  He 
knew  what  he  was  about  when  he  said  that  he 
could  save  the  nation,  and  never  has  it  moved 
more  rapidly  to  gi-eatness  than  when  impelled  by 
the  driving  power  of  his  dictatorial  will.  Yet  it 
would  be  wholly  misleading  to  suppose  that  mere 
force  was  the  foundation  of  his  ascendency.  He 
was  brought  into  office  by  an  irresistible  wave  of 
popular  enthusiasm,  and  he  retained  office  because 
the  people  continued  to  believe  in  him.  He 
drew  his  strength  from  moral  causes.  His  ardent 
patriotism  awakened  all  the  sleeping  energies  of 
the  nation,  and  called  into  existence  a  depth  of 
feeling  and  fortitude  unsuspected  in  that  leisured 
age.  Under  his  guidance  his  fellow-countrymen 
rose  above  themselves,  and  they  never  forgot  the 
source  from  which  their  inspiration  came. 

So  long  as  Pitt  remained  Minister  the  people 
would  follow  him.  But  his  position  was  now 
shaken  by  changes  in  another  quarter.  On 
October    25,    1760,   George    ii.    died,   and    the 


CHATHAM  AS  WAR  MINISTER      8i 

accession  of  his  grandson  marks  a  dividing-line  in 
English  history.  Brought  up  in  almost  entire 
seclusion  by  the  Princess  Dowager  his  mother, 
and  her  counsellor  Lord  Bute,  the  character  of 
George  in.  showed  traits  that  were  strangely 
compounded.  Unlike  his  predecessors,  he  was  a 
pattern  of  the  domestic  virtues,  and  had  a  real 
sense  of  religion.  But  his  mother's  admonition, 
"  George,  be  a  king !  "  had,  to  the  misfortune  of 
his  country,  indelibly  imprinted  itself  upon  his 
mind.  He  was  educated  to  believe  that  a  con- 
stitutional monarch  was  a  monarch  in  fetters,  and 
the  rapidity  with  which,  from  the  hour  of  his 
accession,  he  adopted  the  opposite  policy  of 
personal  rule  showed  that  the  Princess's  teaching 
had  fallen  on  responsive  ground.  Geoi'ge  in.  did 
not  shrink  from  immoral  means  to  carry  out  an 
unconstitutional  end.  Armed  with  the  whole 
influence  of  Crown  patronage,  he  descended,  like 
Walpole  and  Newcastle,  into  the  arena  of 
Parliamentary  corruption,  and  plunged  with 
evident  enjoyment  into  the  business  of  sordid 
electioneering.  At  the  same  time  he  traded  un- 
blushingly  on  the  natural  sentiments  of  loyalty 
and  attachment  to  the  throne.  It  was  this  poli- 
tical partisanship,  coupled  with  certain  very  real 
failings — his  uncandid  and  ungenerous  temper, 
his  invincible  obstinacy,  and  his  extraordinary 
propensity  for  seeing  only  the  wrong  side  of  a 
6 


82  CHATHAM 

case — that  produced  most  of  the  many  calamities 
of  his  long  and  chequered  reign.  His  immediate 
object  at  present  was  to  build  up  a  Court  party. 
Such  a  party  was,  however,  an  exotic  which 
required  careful  nursing ;  and  it  was  clear  that  it 
would  never  mature  in  the  bracing  atmosphere  of 
public  spirit  and  patriotic  feeling  diffused  by  Pitt. 
The  King  accordingly  resolved  to  cut  down  the 
Minister,  whatever  the  results  might  be  to  the 
nation. 

He  gave  speedy  signs  of  his  intention.  Bute 
was  made  a  Privy  Councillor  before  the  end  of 
October,  and  the  draft  of  the  King's  speech,  which 
he  composed  in  concert  with  George  in.,  referred 
to  the  great  contest  that  was  still  raging  as  "  a 
bloody  and  expensive  war."  Only  upon  making 
strong  representations  could  Pitt  succeed  in 
getting  the  obnoxious  epithets  altered  to  "just 
and  necessary."  Early  in  I76l  Legge  was  dis- 
missed from  the  Chancellorship  of  the  Exchequer, 
and  his  place  was  taken  by  Lord  Barrington,  an 
undisguised  "  King's  Friend,"  as  members  of  the 
new  Court  party  came  by  a  lamentable  abuse  of 
language  to  be  called.  Finally  Holderness,  Pitt's 
fellow  Secretary  of  State,  was  induced,  at  the 
price  of  a  pension  and  the  reversion  of  a  sinecure, 
to  yield  his  place  to  Bute. 

The  King's  designs  were  furthered  by  a  distinct 
cleavage  in  the  Cabinet  on  the  question  of  the 


GEOKGE    III 
After  the  portrait  by  Ramsay 


«2 


CHATHAM  AS  WAR  MINISTER      83 

continuance  of  the  war.  Partly  from  sheer  pique 
at  Pitt's  monopoly  of  power,  partly  from  a  genuine 
desire  for  peace,  the  great  Whigs  took  up  an 
attitude  of  almost  open  hostility  towards  him. 
"The  treatment  that  the  greatest  and  most 
respectable  persons  meet  with,"  Newcastle  wrote 
this  summer  to  Hardwicke  in  a  letter  full  of 
unconscious  humour,  ^'if  they  presume  to  differ 
with  anything  that  has  been  done  or  shall  be 
proposed,  and  the  making  personal  points  of  what 
ought  to  be  free,  cool,  and  deliberate  debate  and 
consideration  amongst  those  whom  his  Majesty 
has  appointed  for  that  purpose, — this  conduct  has, 
and  will  drive  every  person  from  the  Council  who 
is  at  liberty  to  go.  The  Duke  of  Bedford  has 
already  taken  the  resolution  to  come  no  more. 
The  Duke  of  Devonshire  the  same."  ^  Pitt's 
view  was  that  we  still  stood  to  gain  much.  He 
had  despatched  an  expedition  to  Belleisle,  he 
contemplated  further  conquests  in  the  French 
West  Indies,  and  he  did  not  mean  to  abandon 
Frederick.  On  the  other  side  it  was  urged  that 
the  war  had  now  become  almost  wholly  Con- 
tinental, and  that  England's  burden  of  debt  was 
already  vast. 

The  foreign  Powers  were  so  far  conscious  of 
exhaustion  that  negotiations  for  peace  were  begun 
in  the  spring  of  I76l.     There  was  a  congress  at 

^  Rockingham  Memoiri,  i.  30,  31. 


84  CHATHAM 

Augsburg,  to  which  England  sent  plenipoten- 
tiaries, on  the  subject  of  the  European  War; 
and  a  separate  negotiation  between  France  and 
England,  to  carry  on  which  Hans  Stanley, 
grandson  of  the  celebrated  Sir  Hans  Sloane, 
was  sent  to  Paris,  while  M  de  Bussy  came  to 
London. 

France  proposed  that  she  herself  and  England 
should  retain  their  respective  conquests,  and 
named  certain  dates  after  which  any  fresh  con- 
quests that  were  made  should  be  null  and  void. 
Pitt  at  first,  while  agreeing  to  the  broad  principle 
suggested,  considered  that  the  day  of  signing  the 
treaty  should  be  the  only  limit  to  determining 
the  validity  of  future  acquisitions.  On  June  17, 
however,  he  accepted  the  French  dates  for  fixing 
the  uii  possidetis,  on  condition  that  the  peace 
should  be  made  obligatory  irrespective  of  the 
negotiations  at  Augsburg,  and  that  its  prelimi- 
naries should  be  ratified  by  August  1.  By  the 
time  he  despatched  this  memorial  Belleisle  had 
been  taken,  and  he  declared  his  intention  "  to 
enter  into  compensation  for  that  important  con- 
quest." Choiseul,  the  French  Foreign  Minister, 
then  handed  to  Stanley  a  document  called  the 
"  little  leaf," — which  was,  said  Stanley,  "in  shape 
and  size  more  like  a  billet-doux  to  a  lady  than  the 
memorial  for  a  peace  between  two  great  nations."  ^ 
^  Thackeray's  Li/e  of  Chatham,  ii.  Appendix  V. 


CHATHAM  AS  WAR  MINISTER      85 

This  contained  Choiseul's  own  ideas  on  the 
subject  of  compensations.  It  included  among 
other  stipulations  proposals  about  the  frontiers  of 
Canada^  which  Pitt  called  "  captious  and  insidious 
...  in  the  view  to  establish  what  must  not  be  ad- 
mitted, namely,  that  all  which  is  not  Canada  is 
Louisiana."  ^  Pitt  replied  with  far  more  sweeping 
claims  :  the  cession,  without  new  limits,  of  all 
Canada  and  its  dependencies.  Cape  Breton,  and 
the  right  of  fishery ;  the  cession  of  Senegal  and 
Goree  ;  the  reduction  of  Dunkirk ;  the  equitable 
partition  of  the  neutral  islands ;  the  restoration 
of  Minorca  and  destruction  of  the  French  settle- 
ment in  Sumatra ;  and  the  restitution  of  all 
conquests  in  Hanover,  Hesse,  and  Westphalia. 
The  points  to  which  Choiseul  demurred  in  these 
proposals  were  the  jdelding  of  the  right  of  fishery, 
the  cession  of  Goree,  and  the  dismantling  of 
Dunkirk ;  he  also  showed  signs  of  recalcitrance 
with  regard  to  the  German  conquests  and  the 
compensation  for  giving  up  Minorca. 

An  agreement  would  probably  have  been 
arrived  at  but  for  the  sudden  intrusion  of  Spain 
into  the  negotiations.  On  July  15  Choiseul 
presented  a  memorial  in  which  he  urged  certain 
Spanish  claims  with  regard  to  the  Newfoundland 
fishery,  the  British  settlements  in  the  Bay  of 
Honduras,  and  the  restitution  of  prizes  taken 
^  Thackeray's  Life  of  Chatham,  i.  544. 


86  CHATHAM 

under  the  Spanish  flag.  Pitt  received  it  with 
indignation,  and  haughtily  refused  to  allow  the 
disputes  with  Spain  "  to  be  blended  in  any 
manner  whatever  in  the  negotiation  of  peace 
between  the  two  Crowns."  He  did  not,  however, 
close  the  negotiations  without  making  one  more 
offer  to  Choiseul.  This  contained  substantial 
concessions  with  regard  to  the  fisheries  in  the 
Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  and  off  the  Newfoundland 
coast  in  return  for  the  reduction  of  Dunkirk, 
On  the  question  of  the  German  conquests  and 
the  right  to  support  Continental  allies  he  re- 
mained firm.  No  agreement  could  be  arrived 
at  on  these  last  points,  and  in  September  the 
negotiations  dropped. 

Undoubtedly  "  the  truly  British  spirit "  which 
Stanley  described  as  reigning  throughout  Pitt's 
State  papers  militated  against  the  success  of  his 
diplomacy.  It  annoyed  Choiseul  and  mortally 
offended  Spain.  Still  his  last  proposals  were 
liberal,  and  Choiseul's  reply  approximated  to 
them  very  closely.  A  settlement  might  have 
been  effected  but  for  France's  entanglement  with 
Spain,  which  Pitt  was  amply  justified  in  resenting. 
How  far  he  had  information  of  the  Family 
Compact  between  the  two  Crowns  signed  in 
August  of  this  year  is  still  disputed.  In  any 
case,  he  judged  the  situation  with  great  boldness 
and   decision.      He   knew   enough    to   convince 


CHATHAM  AS  WAR  MINISTER      87 

him  that  the  two  Bourbon  kingdoms  were  linked 
in  some  menacing  combination,  and  that  Spain 
was  pushing  on  naval  preparations  which  in  spite 
of  her  disavowals  could  only  be  meant  for  war. 
Choiseul  himself  had  told  Stanley  that  if  peace 
were  not  made  France  would  have  new  allies. 
In  these  circumstances  Pitt  considered  that  the 
right  course  was  to  strike  first  and  to  strike 
quickly.  On  September  18,  in  conjunction  with 
Temple,  who  was  now  practically  his  one  adher- 
ent in  the  Cabinet,  he  submitted  the  celebrated 
"Advice  to  the  King,"  urging  the  immediate 
recall  of  the  British  Ambassador  from  Madrid 
and  the  declaration  of  war  against  Spain.  Neither 
George  in.  nor  the  Ministry  would  follow  him. 
On  October  2  there  was  a  final  Cabinet 
meeting,  at  which  Pitt's  policy  was  rejected. 
Pitt  thereupon  proudly  declared  to  his  colleagues 
that  he  had  been  called  to  the  Ministry  by  the 
voice  of  the  people,  to  whom  he  considered 
himself  accountable,  and  that  he  would  no  longer 
remain  in  a  situation  which  made  him  responsible 
for  measures  he  was  not  allowed  to  guide.  Three 
days  later  he  and  Temple  laid  their  resignation 
before  the  King,  and  the  most  brilliant  adminis- 
tration of  English  history  was  ended. 


CHAPTER  V 


THE    PEACE    OF    PARIS 


Honours  pressed  upon  Pitt — His  appearance  at  the  Guild- 
hall— Crowning  victories  of  the  war — Attitude  of  the 
Ministry — The  Peace  of  Paris — Methods  employed  to 
carry  it — Pitt  on  the  Peace — George  Grenville  becomes 
Premier — Wilkes  and  the  North  Briton — Differences 
between  the  King  and  Grenville — Negotiations  with 
Pitt — The  Bedfords  join  Grenville — Persecution  of 
Wilkes — Pitt  and  the  Wilkes  question. 

REWARDS  and  honours  were  immediately 
pressed  upon  Pitt.  So  unprecedented 
an  administration  could  scarcely  have  been 
passed  over  without  notice,  and  doubtless  the 
King  felt  for  him  a  measure  of  unaffected  gratitude. 
But  there  was  also  a  sinister  design  to  undo  him 
as  a  popular  favourite  by  making  him  the  recipient 
of  Royal  favours,  and  for  a  moment  it  seemed 
likely  to  succeed.  Pitt,  after  refusing  the  governor- 
ship of  Canada  with  .£5000  a  year  and  without 
the  obligation  of  residence,  and  the  chancellor- 
ship of  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster  with  the  same 
salary,   accepted  a   peerage   for   his  wife   and  a 


THE  PEACE  OF  PARIS  89 

pension  of  ^3000  a  year,  for  three  lives,  for 
himself.  As  soon  as  these  rewards,  which  were 
published  in  the  same  Gazette  that  announced 
Pitt's  resignation,  were  made  known,  there 
was  a  bitter  popular  outcry.  Perfectly  natural 
and  intelligible  as  was  his  acceptance  of  them, 
and  positively  meagre  as  they  were  when  com- 
pared with  his  services — Lord  Holdemess  had 
just  received  a  larger  sum  as  the  price  of  his 
resignation  —  Pitt's  independence  had  been  so 
remarkable  that  he  was  judged  by  a  standard  of 
his  own.  The  people  left  him  as  though  dis- 
illusioned. Horace  Walpole  complained  to 
Conway  that  he  had  been  "the  dupe  of  his 
disinterestedness."  Two  months  later  Fox  was 
still  rubbing  his  hands  over  what  he  thought  the 
discomfiture  of  his  rival,  and  wrote  down  an  in- 
cautious sentence  which  has  survived  to  show  the 
futility  of  political  prophecies  dictated  by  mal- 
evolence. *'It  is  already  growing  no  paradox,"  he 
says  in  the  valuable  memoir  which,  together  with 
the  letters  of  that  most  fascinating  of  eighteenth- 
century  personages.  Lady  Sarah  Lennox,  has  been 
lately  given  to  the  public,  "it  will  perhaps  by 
the  time  these  papers  shall  be  read  be  an  allowed 
truth,  that  Mr.  Pitt,  who  has  made  so  great  a 
figure  these  four  years,  was  what  Lord  Winchelsea 
four  years  ago  said  he  was,  a  very  silly  fellow."  ^ 

^  Lije  and  Letters  of  Lady  Sarah  Lennox,  i.  57. 


go  CHATHAM 

In  point  of  fact,  Pitt's  unpopularity  lasted  not 
much  more  than  a  week.  On  October  15  he 
wrote  a  little  manifesto  to  the  Town  Clerk  of 
London,  which  speedily  set  him  right  with  the 
people.  "I  resigned  the  seals  on  Monday,  the 
5th  of  this  month,"  he  said  in  the  course  of  it, 
"  in  order  not  to  remain  responsible  for  measures 
which  I  was  no  longer  allowed  to  guide.  Most 
gracious  public  marks  of  his  Majesty's  approbation 
of  my  services  followed  my  resignation.  They  are 
unmerited  and  unsolicited ;  and  I  shall  ever  be 
proud  to  have  received  them  from  the  best  of 
sovereigns."  ^  As  Burke  said,  it  was  a  shame  that 
any  defence  should  have  been  necessary.  There 
was  an  immediate  reaction  in  his  favour.  The 
Common  Council  passed  a  vote  of  thanks  to  him, 
and  York,  Exeter,  Chester,  Stirling,  and  other 
towns  followed  their  example.  Finally,  there  was 
a  great  demonstration  of  confidence  on  Lord 
Mayor's  day.  Pitt  was  pressed  to  join  the  Royal 
procession  to  the  Guildhall,  and  his  appearance 
produced  an  extraordinary  scene,  of  which 
Nuthall,  Pitt's  solicitor  and  intimate  friend,  has 
left  us  an  amusing  record.^  The  young  King 
and  Queen  were  hardly  noticed.  Bute's  carriage 
was  at  first  supposed  to  be  Pitt's,  but  as  soon  as 
the  mistake  was  discovered  the  people  made  their 
feelings  clear  by  cries  of  "  No  Bute  !  "  "  No  New- 

*  Chatham  Correipondence,  ii.   158,  159.      ^  Ibid.  ii.  166-168. 


THE  PEACE  OF  PARIS  91 

castle  salmon !  "  Pitt  himself  passed  through 
the  crowded  streets  amid  storms  of  cheering, 
and  at  the  Guildhall  he  was  not  less  enthusi- 
astically received.  Bute  had  taken  the  precaution 
to  surround  himself  with  "a  party  of  bruisers, 
with  George  Stephenson,  the  one-eyed  fighting 
coachman,  at  their  head ; "  but  before  they 
reached  their  destination  Stephenson  "  had  been 
obliged  to  retire  under  the  chariot,  and  with  great 
difficulty  got  into  Guildhall  Coffee-house,  in  great 
disgrace  and  trampled  under  foot."  Pitt's  action 
on  this  occasion  has  been  censured  as  luibecoming, 
and,  as  he  must  more  or  less  have  foreseen  what 
the  result  of  his  appearance  would  be,  he  can 
hardly  be  acquitted  of  having  shown  disrespect 
to  the  King.  That  he  realised  this  afterwards 
is  clear  from  the  endorsement,  in  Lady  Chatham's 
hand,  on  the  note  from  Beckford  urging  him  to  go  : 
"  Mr.  Beckford,  1761  ;  to  press  my  lord  to  appear 
with  Lord  Temple  ;  to  which  he  yielded  for  his 
friend's  sake  ;  but,  as  he  always  declared,  both  then 
and  afterwards,  against  his  better  judgment."  ^ 

When  Parliament  met,  Pitt  spoke  with 
moderation  of  his  late  colleagues,  only  laying 
stress  on  the  paramount  necessity  of  continuing 
the  war  in  Germany.  In  a  very  few  weeks  the 
policy  for  which  he  had  fought  his  final  battle  in 
the  Cabinet  received   a  triumphant  justification. 

^  Chatham  Correspondence,  ii.   165. 


92  CHATHAM 

Spain,  having  got  her  silver-ships  from  America 
safely  home,  made  no  secret  of  her  warlike 
preparations  and  her  alliance  with  France.  The 
Spanish  diplomatists  assumed  a  tone  which  they 
would  never  have  dared  to  use  to  Pitt.  At 
length,  on  December  10,  the  English  Ambas- 
sador was  withdrawn  from  Madrid,  and  on  the 
last  day  of  the  year  war  was  declared. 

Pitt  might  have  been  excused  if  he  had 
improved  the  opportunity  thus  offered  him 
against  the  Ministers  who,  after  declaiming 
against  war  with  Spain,  were  obliged  to  have  re- 
course to  it  as  soon  as  they  had  driven  him  from 
office.  Instead,  he  made  the  kindling  appeal  to 
patriotism,  which  is  one  of  his  best  remembered 
utterances.  "  Be  one  people ! "  he  said  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  ''This  war,  though  it  has 
cut  deep  into  our  pecuniary,  has  augmented  our 
military  faculties.  Set  that  against  the  debt,  that 
spirit  which  has  made  us  what  we  are.  Forget 
everything  but  the  public !  For  the  public  I 
forget  both  my  wrongs  and  my  infirmities." 

Then  followed  a  series  of  brilliant  victories. 
The  ardour  and  efficiency  which  Pitt  had  inspired 
in  the  public  services  still  produced  great  results 
in  spite  of  his  removal.  Mai*tinique  was  con- 
quered in  February  1762,  and,  one  after  another, 
all  the  French  West  Indies  fell  into  our  hands. 
Then   fell    Havannah,   the    richest   city   of    the 


THE  PEACE  OF  PARIS  93 

Spanish  Main ;  and  in  October  came  a  crowning 
success  in  the  Far  East,  Sir  W.  Draper  capturing 
Manilla  and  the  Philippines.  These  triumphs 
were  held  to  redound  not  to  the  credit  of  the 
Ministry  but  to  that  of  Pitt ;  for  all  knew  that 
he  had  urged  on  the  Spanish  War,  that  he  was 
responsible  for  the  Martinique  expedition,  and 
that  he  had  planned  the  attack  upon  Havannah. 
His  single  eloquence,  said  Horace  Walpole,  could, 
Uke  an  annihilated  star,  shine  many  months 
after  it  had  set.  "I  shall  bum  all  my  Greek 
and  Latin  books — they  are  histories  of  little 
people.  The  Romans  never  conquered  the  world 
till  they  had  conquered  three  parts  of  it,  and 
were  three  hundred  years  about  it.  We  subdue 
the  globe  in  three  campaigns ;  and  a  globe,  let 
me  tell  you,  as  big  again  as  it  was  in  their 
days." 

Within  the  Ministry  there  was  disunion. 
Newcastle  had  exulted  over  Pitt's  departure,  but 
before  long  he  regretted  that  he  had  exchanged 
Pitt's  hauteur  for  the  deliberate  insolence  of 
Bute.  Ever  since  Pitt's  resignation  he  had  been 
carefully  kept  in  ignorance  of  all  that  was  in 
progress,  and  did  not  know  even  of  the  decision 
to  declare  war  on  Spain  until  the  day  before  the 
step  was  taken.  He  wrote  to  Hardwicke  on 
December  30,  I76l,  that  he  had  received  that 
morning    an   "extraordinary    uninforming   note 


94  CHATHAM 

from  my  Lord  Egmont,"  and  also  ''from  my 
porter,  a  summons  for  a  council,  I  think  this  day, 
upon  what  I  know  not."  ^  By  the  end  of  May 
1762  he  could  bear  it  no  longer,  and,  having 
learned  that  Bute  intended  to  withdraw  Eng- 
land from  the  German  War  and  not  to  renew 
Frederick's  subsidy,  he  resigned  office.  Pitt 
contended  to  the  last  for  the  policy  of  continu- 
ing the  war  not  only  in  Germany  but  in  the 
Peninsula,  where  a  fresh  area  of  conflict  had  been 
opened  by  Spain's  shameless  invasion  of  Portugal. 
He  did  not  mean,  he  said,  that  we  should  bear 
Portugal  on  our  shoulders,  but  only  set  him  on 
his  legs  and  put  a  sword  in  his  hand.  France, 
he  affirmed,  was  almost  a  ruined  nation.  But, 
while  the  tide  of  victory  was  rising  higher,  the 
Cabinet  thought  only  of  making  peace  at  any 
price.  The  Duke  of  Bedford  spoke  of  England's 
conquests  in  accents  of  positive  alarm,  and  it  was 
made  abundantly  clear  to  the  hostile  Powers 
that  if  they  asked  for  peace  the  English  Ministers 
would  be  only  too  ready  to  give  it  them.  Bute 
was  carrying  on  secret  negotiations  through 
Count  de  Viri,  the  Sardinian  Ambassador  in 
England.  Dark  charges  of  want  of  faith  were 
also  brought  against  him.  He  treated  with 
Maria  Theresa  without  Frederick's  knowledge, 
and  was  said  to  have  pressed  Russia  to  adhere  to 

^  Rockingham  Memoirs,  i.  102,  10 3. 


THE  PEACE  OF  PARIS  95 

her  alliance  with  Austria  in  order  to  bring  the 
King  of  Prussia  to  his  knees.  After  much 
private  diplomacy  he  put  the  settlement  of  the 
peace  into  the  hands  of  Bedford,  and  the 
preliminaries  were  soon  decided  upon. 

In  North  America  France  ceded  to  England 
the  whole  province  of  Canada,  together  with  Nova 
Scotia  and  Cape  Breton  ;  but  she  retained  her 
fishing  rights  on  the  Newfoundland  coast,  and 
within  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  at  three  leagues' 
distance  from  the  shore,  and  she  acquired  two 
little  islands,  St.  Pierre  and  Miquelon,  as  a 
shelter  for  her  fishermen.  In  the  West  Indies 
England  kept  Grenada  and  the  Grenadines,  St. 
Vincent,  Dominica,  and  Tobago,  but  she  restored 
Guadaloupe,  Martinique,  St.  Lucia,  Marie  Galante, 
and  Desirade  to  France.  In  Africa  she  kept 
Senegal  and  ceded  Goree.  In  India  all  conquests 
made  since  1749  were  mutually  restored  ;  France 
undertook,  however,  not  to  garrison  or  fortify  her 
Bengalese  factories,  and  she  acknowledged  the 
English  candidates  in  the  Camatic  and  the 
Deccan.  In  Europe  she  surrendered  Minorca, 
evacuated  her  German  conquests,  and  demolished 
the  walls  of  Dunkirk. 

Spain  gave  up  Florida,  which  completed  the 
line  of  the  English  colonies  in  America  to  the 
south,  renounced  her  claim  to  fish  off  Newfound- 
land,  acknowledged   the    English   right   to   cut 


96  CHATHAM 

logwood  in  the  bay  of  Honduras,  on  the 
demolition  of  the  English  fortifications  there, 
and  agreed  to  British  adjudication  on  prizes 
captured  under  the  Spanish  flag.  But  she  took 
back  Havannah  as  compensation,  and  recovered 
Manilla  and  the  Philippines,  tidings  of  whose 
conquest  did  not  come  until  the  preliminaries 
were  already  signed,  without  even  paying  the 
ransom  for  the  private  property  of  Manilla  to 
which  she  was  pledged.  The  bare  outlines  of 
the  Peace  show  that  it  was  made  on  conditions 
no  more  favourable  than  could  have  been  ob- 
tained by  Pitt  a  year  before,  since  when  France 
had  suffered  a  monotony  of  defeat.  And  when, 
on  closer  investigation,  we  see  the  spirit  in  which 
the  English  Ministers  made  terms,  and  examine 
the  value  of  the  mutual  restitutions,  there  is  still 
greater  reason  for  dissatisfaction.  Bute  appears 
to  have  been  anxious  only  to  dispose  of  everything 
with  as  much  speed  as  possible.  Frederick  he 
abandoned  so  perfunctorily  that  nothing  but  the 
prompt  action  of  the  King  enabled  him  to  secure 
the  German  territory,  as  to  which  Bute  had 
simply  stipulated  that  France  was  to  cede  it, 
without  saying  whether  to  enemies  or  allies. 
Alone  in  the  Cabinet  George  Grenville  made  a 
stand  for  the  national  honour.  He  protested 
strongly  against  the  surrender  of  Guadaloupe 
and  St.  Lucia ;  but  while  he  was  ill  in  bed  Bute 


THE  PEACE  OF  PARIS  97 

took  advantage  of  his  absence  to  call  a  council 
and  get  rid  of  the  former  island,  the  value  of 
which  had  considerably  increased  during  the 
few  years  it  had  been  a  British  possession. 
Similarly,  Bute  made  no  scruples  about  giving  up 
the  great  prize  of  Havannah,  and  would  actually 
have  surrendered  it  without  compensation  if 
Grenville  had  not  insisted  on  the  acquisition  of 
Florida,  which  was  a  very  meagre  exchange. 
We  yielded  Martinique,  the  fruit  of  a  costly 
expedition,  and  St.  Lucia,  which  Rodney  de- 
scribed as  second  only  to  Martinique  in  stra- 
tegic importance.  But,  of  all  the  shortcomings 
of  the  Peace,  the  most  characteristic  was  the 
total  loss  of  Manilla,  which  passed  from  us 
uncompensated  because  no  stipulation  of  any 
kind  had  been  made  with  regard  to  it  in  the 
preliminaries,  which  were  signed  before  the  news 
of  its  capture  arrived.  France,  on  the  other 
hand,  though  in  yielding  her  conquest  of  Minorca 
she  ceded  us  a  prize,  could  not  have  retaken  by 
arms  the  West  Indian  islands  which  we  restored 
to  her ;  and  still  less  could  Spain  have  recovered, 
otherwise  than  by  negotiation,  Havannah  and 
Manilla. 

None  the  less,  and  now,  at  any  rate,  when  the 

dust  of  the  political  struggles   that  hung  round 

the  Peace  of  Paris  has  long  been  laid  for  ever,  we 

can  hardly  deplore  a  treaty  which  gave  England 

7 


98  CHATHAM 

gains  so  solid  and  unprecedented,  and  set  the 
stamp  on  her  dominion  of  the  sea.  It  was  other- 
wise in  November  1762,  when  the  preliminaries 
were  signed.  To  the  unpopularity  which  Bute 
derived  from  his  position  as  a  Royal  favourite  and 
his  Scotch  nationality  was  now  added  a  disgust  at 
the  Peace,  and  a  general  belief  that  he  had  been 
bribed  to  make  it.  But  by  fair  means  or  foul  he 
had  to  get  the  consent  of  Parliament  to  what  he 
had  done,  and  he  turned  to  look  for  a  colleague 
unscrupulous  enough  to  corrupt  the  House  of 
Commons  and  strong  enough  to  face  Pitt.  Fox, 
who  still  wanted  a  peerage  and  might  fairly  be 
called  upon  to  earn  it,  was  clearly  the  man. 
George  Grenville,  who  had  neither  the  audacity 
nor  the  stamina  to  carry  a  peace  of  which  he 
disapproved,  made  way  for  him  in  the  leadership 
and  became  instead  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty. 
Fox  immediately  opened  a  characteristic  campaign. 
At  the  Pay  Office  members  of  Parliament  dis- 
posed of  their  support  for  the  best  bargains  they 
could  make,  £200  for  a  vote  on  the  treaty  being 
the  very  lowest  sum  taken.  Twenty-five  thousand 
pounds  of  public  money  were  thus  squandered  in 
one  morning,  and  in  a  fortnight  Fox  had  made 
certain  of  a  substantial  majority.  At  the  same 
time  victory  was  made  doubly  sure  by  a  vast 
proscription.  The  great  Whigs  were  smitten 
down  without  respect  of  persons.     With  his  own 


THE  PEACE  OF  PARIS  99 

hand  the  King  dashed  the  Duke  of  Devonshire's 
name  off  the  hst  of  the  Privy  Council.  The  Duke 
of  Newcastle,  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  and  Lord 
Rockingham  were  dismissed  from  their  lord- 
lieutenancies,  and  Fox  was  not  content  with  con- 
spicuous victims.  Everyone  who  was  found  to  owe 
the  smallest  salary  in  the  public  service  or  on  the 
list  of  public  benefaction  to  a  Whig  patron  was  de- 
prived of  it,  and  neither  age  nor  sex  was  spared. 

Even  with  their  bought  majority  the  Ministers 
looked  forward  apprehensively  to  the  meeting  of 
Parliament.  Popular  clamour  rose  daily  higher, 
and  they  had  still  to  reckon  with  the  eloquence 
of  Pitt.  Parliament  met  at  the  end  of  November, 
and  on  December  9  the  preliminaries  of  the 
Peace  were  discussed  in  both  Houses.  In  the 
Lords,  despite  the  opposition  of  the  Whig  dukes, 
they  were  approved  without  a  division.  Pitt, 
who  was  suffering  painfully  from  gout,  was  not 
present  at  the  opening  of  the  debate  in  the 
Commons,  and  there  was  much  speculation  as  to 
whether  he  would  appear  at  all.  At  length 
cheering  in  the  Lobby  was  heard,  the  doors  opened, 
and  Pitt,  "at  the  head  of  a  large  acclaiming 
concourse,"  was  borne  in  by  his  servants  and  set 
down  inside  the  bar.  There  he  crawled  to  his 
seat  on  his  crutch,  and  with  the  aid  of  his  friends, 
"  not  without  the  sneers  of  some  of  Fox's  party." 
He   was   dressed   in   black   velvet,   "buskins   of 


lOO  CHATHAM 

black  cloth"  covered  his  feet,  flannel  swathed 
his  thighs,  and  there  were  thick  gloves  upon  his 
hands. ^  It  was  one  of  those  dramatic  exhibitions 
which  led  his  critics  to  call  him  a  mountebank, 
and  which  nothing  but  his  astonishing  personal 
magnetism  saved  from  absurdity.  Suffering  as  he 
was  from  sickness  and  exhaustion,  he  spoke  with 
indomitable  pertinacity  for  over  three  hours,  but 
much  of  his  oration  had  to  be  delivered  sitting ; 
and  on  a  day  when,  as  Horace  Walpole  observed, 
thunder  was  wanted  to  blast  the  treaty,  Pitt's 
voice  flagged  through  weakness  and  robbed  his 
words  of  their  full  beauty  and  power. 

But  he  made  clear  his  entire  disapprobation 
of  the  Peace.  He  condemned  unsparingly  the 
fishery  concessions  to  France,  the  exchange  of 
Havannah  for  Florida,  and  the  surrender  of  all 
our  most  valuable  gains  in  the  West  Indies.  It 
is  characteristic  of  him  and  of  his  time  that  the 
ground  of  his  condemnation  was  that  we  had 
failed  to  establish  a  commercial  monopoly  for 
England  and  to  extinguish  the  trade  of  France. 
Great  and  generous  as  was  his  devotion  to  the 
empire,  he  yet  believed  fully  in  the  ancient 
fallacy  of  the  mercantile  system,  which  held  that 
only  one  of  the  two  parties  to  a  commercial 
exchange  could  be  the  gainer  by  it.  Still  his 
speech   was    full   of   statesmanlike   insight.     He 

^  Walpole's  Memoirt  of  George  the  TAird{ist  ed.),  i.  223,  224. 


LORD    HOLLAND 


THE  PEACE  OF  PARIS  loi 

discerned  unerringly  the  new  forces  that  were  at 
work  in  Europe.  JRussia  and  Ru§siaT>  policy  he 
described  compa«itly-'a''  moving  "In  its  own  orbit 
extrinsically  of  «>11  other  systems,  but  gravitating 
to  each  acco^din^^  to,  the  ai^s  of  -attracting 
interest  it  contains."  And  he  foretold  the  course 
of  German  consolidation  when,  in  expatiating  on 
the  baseness  of  Bute's  desertion  of  Frederick,  he 
referred  to  the  King  of  Prussia  as  "born  to  be 
the  natural  asserter  of  Germanic  liberties  against 
the  House  of  Austria."  ^ 

Despite  Pitt's  efforts,  the  House  approved  the 
Peace  by  the  substantial  majority  of  254.  But 
the  Ministry  found  that  public  opinion  was  far 
from  ratifying  this  verdict ;  and  the  Cider  Tax, 
which,  according  to  tradition,  was  imposed  by 
the  incompetent  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
Sir  Francis  Dashwood,  because  it  was  the  only 
one  which  he  could  understand,  set  even  the  Tory 
counties  of  the  west  aflame.  At  the  height  of 
the  storm,  Bute,  whose  unpopularity  was  seriously 
menacing  the  stability  of  the  King's  new  party, 
resigned.  With  him  Dashwood  retired,  in  April 
1763  ;  and  Fox,  now  become  Lord  Holland, 
departed  from  active  politics  with  his  peerage, 
and  with  as  much  pecimiary  emolument  as,  after 
acrimonious  haggling  with  his  colleagues,  he  could 
manage  to  retain. 

^  Almon's  Anecdotes  of  Chatham,  i.  412,  413. 


102  CHATHAM 

George  Grenville  then  resumed  the  leadership 
of  the  House  of  Commons  from  which  Fox  had 
displaced  him,  and  becjujae  -First  Lord  of  the 
Treasurv:^  'His  «osfe. at -the -Admiralty  was  taken 
by  Lord  Sand>^icfi/«:t  oiice.tlife  atJlest  and  most 
profligate  figure  in  the  great  political  connection 
of  the  Duke  of  Bedford.  Bedford  himself,  who 
had  held  opposite  views  to  Grenville  on  the 
subject  of  the  Peace,  did  not  join  the  Ministry. 
The  two  Secretaries  of  State  were  Lord  Egremont, 
son  of  the  Tory  leader  Sir  William  Wyndham,  and 
inheriting  from  him  much  Tory  influence,  and 
Lord  Halifax,  who  was  to  be  chiefly  conspicuous 
as  the  adversary  of  Wilkes. 

Grenville  had  only  been  at  the  head  of  affairs 
for  a  fortnight  when  an  event  occurred  which, 
ludicrously  small  in  origin,  grew  through  the 
obstinate  stupidity  of  the  King  and  his  Ministers 
to  the  dimensions  of  a  grave  constitutional 
question.  In  1762  had  been  founded  the  North 
Briton,  "a  most  virulent  weekly  paper,"  which 
assailed  Bute  and  the  King's  party  with  much 
dexterity  and  directness,  and  specially  devoted 
itself  to  fanning  the  violent  prejudice  against  the 
Scotch.  It  was  produced  by  John  Wilkes,  at 
this  time  member  for  Aylesbury.  Wilkes  was 
the  son  of  wealthy  middle-class  parents,  and  when 
quite  a  young  man  had  contracted  a  marriage, 
which  he  himself  called  "  a  sacrifice  to  Plutus, 


THE  PEACE  OF  PARIS  103 

not  to  Venus,"  with  a  Methodist  heiress.  Her 
life  was  soon  made  so  intolerable  by  the  dissolute 
men  of  fashion  whom  Wilkes  brought  to  dinner, 
that  she  left  first  his  table  and  then  his  house ; 
but  Wilkes,  having  spent  his  own  money  and 
most  of  hers  on  the  purchase  of  a  seat  in  Par- 
liament, still  pursued  her  with  attempts  to  get 
possession  of  her  small  remaining  annuity,  until 
the  Courts  warned  him  to  desist.  Then,  when  he 
had  offered  himself  impartially  for  the  posts  of 
Governor  of  Canada  and  Ambassador  at  Con- 
stantinople, and  failed  to  obtain  either,  he  betook 
himself  to  the  publication  of  the  North  Briton. 
Forty-four  numbers  had  appeared  before  Bute 
resigned,  and  at  the  beginning  of  April,  when  his 
impending  retirement  became  known,  Wilkes  for 
a  time  ceased  publishing.  But  the  King's  speech 
proroguing  Parliament  on  April  19  made  it  clear 
that  the  policy  of  the  new  Ministry  was  to  be  the 
same  as  that  of  the  old  ;  and  on  April  23  Wilkes 
issued  the  now  historic  "  No.  45."  In  it  he  took 
his  stand  boldly  on  the  received  doctrine  that 
the  King's  speech  was  really  the  speech  of  the 
Ministers.  From  this  point  of  view  he  attacked 
them  with  great  vigour  and  effect.  He  called  the 
speech  "  the  most  abandoned  instance  of  official 
effrontery  ever  attempted  to  be  imposed  on  man- 
kind," and  inveighed  against  its  attempt  to  gloss 
over  the  desertion  of  the  King  of  Prussia. 


I04  CHATHAM 

With  no  suspicion  of  the  long  -  continued 
struggle  to  which  they  were  committing  them- 
selves, George  III.  and  his  Ministers  resolved  to 
crush  Wilkes.  They  issued  a  general  warrant, 
signed  by  the  Secretary  of  State,  commanding  the 
arrest  of  "  the  authors,  printers,  and  publishers  " 
of  the  paper,  but  specifying  no  names.  Under 
this,  Wilkes  and  forty-eight  other  persons  were 
brought  before  Lord  Halifax.  Acting  with  great  - 
coolness  and  spirit,  W^ilkes  pleaded  his  privilege  . 
as  a  member  of  Parliament  against  arrest,  and 
protested  against  a  warrant  containing  no  names 
as  illegal.  The  Secretaries  of  State  rejoined  by 
committing  him  a  close  prisoner  to  the  Tower. 
Far  from  quailing  under  this  extraordinary  treat- 
ment, he  wrote  a  letter  to  his  daughter,  who  was 
then  at  school  in  France,  congratulating  her  qp. 
living  in  a  free  country,  and  sent 'it  open  to  Lord 
Halifax.  A  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus'was  obtained 
for  him  by  his  friends,  and  he  was  brought  before. 
Chief  Justice  Ifratt  ^in  the  Court  of  Common 
Pleas.  Here  he  was  victorious  at  all  points.  Th^ 
Chief  Justice  ordered  his  release  on  the  ground 
that  the  privilege  of  Parliament  shielded  membS^ 
from  arrest  in  all  cases  except  treason,  felon3i;j 
and  breach:  of  the  peace  ;  and,  in  the  actions  that 
were  brought  by  the  arrested  persons  against 
those  who  had  executed  the  warrant,  he  decided 
that  warrants  to  search  for  and  seize  papers  on  a 


THE  PEACE  OF  PARIS  105 

charge  of  libel  were  illegal,  and  expressed  the  same 
opinion  as  to  general  warrants.  A  Guildhall  jury 
awarded  Wilkes  £1000  damages  against  Wood,  the 
Under-Secretary  of  State ;  and  Halifax,  against 
whom  also  Wilkes  brought  an  action  for  illegal 
arrest,  only  escaped  an  adverse  decision  by  employ- 
ing legal  technicalities  to  delay  the  proceedings. 
The  King  now  descended  on  Wilkes  and  removed 
him  from  the  colonelcy  of  the  Buckinghamshire 
militia.  Lord  Temple,  wjio  had  warmly  supported 
Wilk"es  from  the  first,  was  obliged,  as  Lord- 
Lieutenant  of  the  county,  to  inform  him  of  the 
fact.  "^He  did  so  in  a  very  complimentary  letter, 
and  was  at  once  removed  from  his  Lieutenancy 
»and  from  the  Privy  Council. 

Before  the  end  of- this  ijurbulent  summer  the 
King  had  grown  Weary  of  his  new  Prime 
Minister.  It  was  not  that  they  disagreed  abqut 
the  Wilkfes  question  ;  on  the  contrary,  in  this,  as 
in  all  the  other  ^.rbitrary  proceedings  of  the  Gren- 
yille  administration,  the  King  and  his  Ministers' 
were  in  full  accord.  But  George  in.  had  already 
discovered  that  Grenville  was  possessed  of  a  dic- 
ta^rial  obstinacy  closely  resembling  his  own,  dnd 
that  if  he  wanted,  as  he  always  did  want,  to  govern 
in  person,  he  must  look  for  some  more  respectful 
agent.  There  is  not  a  little  irony  in  the  fact  that, 
on  Bute's  advice,  he  now  decided  to  appeal  to  Pitt. 

rPitt  had,  since  his  resignation  in   1761,  been 


io6  CHATHAM 

numbered  with  the  Opposition,  and  had  taken, 
as  we  have  seen,  as  prominent  a  part  as  his 
ill-health  would  allow  in  denouncing  the  Peace 
of  Paris.  At  the  same  time,  though  overtures 
had  been  made  to  him  by  Newcastle  and  the 
Duke  of  Cumberland  for  co-operation  in  a  con- 
certed plan  of  action,  he  had  refused  to  commit 
himself  to  a  definitive  union  with  the  great 
Whigs.  It  is  probable  that  he  was  still  somewhat 
dazzled  with  the  magnificence  of  his  own  achieve- 
ments as  a  War  Minister,  and  was  not  attracted  by 
the  aspect  which  domestic  politics  were  begin- 
ning to  wear.  It  is  certain  that  his  cleavage 
with  the  main  Whig  connection  at  the  close  of 
his  Ministry  had  left  a  deep  impression  on  his 
mind,  and  intensified  that  distrust  of  party  which, 
as  will  be  more  fully  seen  later,  always  impelled 
him  to  stand  alone.  At  the  same  time  he 
counted  himself  a  Whig,  he  was  far  from  ignoring 
the  fact  that  the  Whig  families  were  still  in- 
dispensable to  the  nation,  and  when  Bute  and 
the  King  approached  him  on  this  occasion  he 
gave  a  convincing  proof  of  his  loyalty  to  W^hig 
beliefs.  On  Friday,  August  26,  1763,  he 
received  a  message  from  the  King  requiring  his 
attendance  at  noon  next  day  at  "the  Queen's 
palace  in  the  Park."  Accordingly,  on  Saturday 
he  "went  at  noonday  through  the  Mall  in  his 
gouty   chair,    the    boot   of  which     (as    he    said 


THE  PEACE  OF  PARIS  107 

himself)  makes  it  as  much  known  as  if  his  name 
was  writ  upon  it."  The  King  received  him 
graciously,  and  they  talked  for  three  hours.  Pitt 
laid  stress  on  "the  infirmities  of  the  Peace"  and 
the  necessity  of  calling  in  the  great  Whig  families. 
He  was  told  to  come  again  on  Monday.  On 
Sunday,  "  fully  persuaded  from  the  King's  manner 
and  behaviour  that  the  thing  would  do,"  he 
visited  Newcastle  at  Claremont  and  wrote  to  the 
other  Whig  leaders.^  But  on  the  same  day  Bute 
had  met,  at  Kew,  Elliot  and  Jenkinson,  two 
typical  hirelings  of  the  Court  party,  and  they 
terrified  him  so  much  with  a  lurid  picture  of  the 
results  that  would  ensue  if  the  King  called  in 
Pitt,  that  Bute  went  back  to  his  master  and 
advised  him  to  revert  to  Grenville.^  Accordingly, 
on  Sunday  evening  the  King  put  himself  once 
more  in  Grenville's  hands,  and  assured  him  that 
he  need  not  be  afraid  of  any  more  machinations 
on  the  part  of  Bute.  There  still  remained  Pitt's 
interview  of  Monday.  The  King  allowed  this  to 
be  protracted  to  the  length  of  two  hours,  and 
then,  after  Pitt  had  again  pointed  out  that  he 
could  not  take  office  without  "  the  great  families 
who  have  supported  the  Revolution  government, 
and  other  great  persons  of  whose  abilities  and 
integrity  the  public   have   had  experience,"  he 

•*  Chatham  Correspondence,  ii,  236-Z38. 
^  GrenviUe  Papers,  ii.  197. 


io8  CHATHAM 

ended  the  conversation  by  the  remark,  "Well, 
Mr.  Pitt,  I  see  this  won't  do.  My  honour  is 
concerned,  and  I  must  support  it."  ^  Before  the 
end  of  the  day  further  offers  were  made  by  Bute 
to  Pitt,  but  these  were  refused.  The  conclusion 
of  the  whole  matter  was  that,  as  the  result  of 
another  characteristic  piece  of  obliquity  on  the 
part  of  the  King,  the  Bedfords  were  taken  into 
the  Ministry.  Bedford,  who  knew  nothing  of 
the  previous  overtures  to  Pitt,  had  advised  the 
King  to  send  for  the  latter ;  but  the  King  was 
careful  in  return  to  inform  him  that  Pitt,  who, 
for  his  part,  knew  nothing  of  Bedford's  recom- 
mendation either,  had  animadverted  strongly 
upon  him  and  the  other  negotiators  of  the  Peace. 
Filled  with  resentment  against  Pitt,  Bedford 
brought  his  powerful  faction  to  the  support  of 
Grenville,  himself  becoming  President  of  the 
Council,  and  Sandwich  Secretary  of  State. 

The  Ministry  was  no  less  resolved  on  the 
annihilation  of  Wilkes  because  of  its  reconstruc- 
tion. When  Parliament  met  again  on  November 
15,  the  Government  majority  in  the  House  of 
Commons  condemned  the  offending  number  of 
the  North  Brito7i  as  a  "  false,  scandalous,  and 
seditious  libel,"  while  in  the  House  of  Lords 
Sandwich,  himself  a  fellow-reveller  of  Wilkes  in 
the  notorious  brotherhood  of  Medmenham,  pro- 

^  Chatham  Correspondence,  ii.  240,  241. 


THE  PEACE  OF  PARIS  109 

duced  an  indecent  but  unpublished  parody  of 
Pope  which  Wilkes  had  composed,  entitled  the 
Essay  on  Woman.  The  Peers  without  loss  of 
time  voted  it  blasphemous,  and  also  a  breach  of 
privilege  against  Warburton,  the  latitudinarian 
Bishop  of  Gloucester,  who,  having  found  that 
some  burlesque  notes  appended  to  the  poem 
had  been  maliciously  attributed  to  his  name 
by  Wilkes,  ''foamed  with  the  violence  of  a  St. 
Dominic "  in  the  debate,  and  said  that  the 
blackest  fiends  in  hell  would  not  keep  company 
with  his  traducer.^  Nor  was  this  all.  The 
next  day,  Martin,  an  ex-Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
who  had  been  practising  with  the  pistol  all  the 
summer,  revived  an  old  insult  which  he  had 
received  from  Wilkes,  challenged  him  to  a  duel 
in  the  Park,  and  left  him  a  few  hours  later 
dangerously  wounded  on  the  field. 

Pitt  keenly  resented  the  extravagant  illegali- 
ties in  the  proceedings  against  Wilkes.  "Why 
do  not  they  search  the  Bishop  of  Gloucester's 
study  of  heresy  ? "  he  exclaimed  indignantly 
when  he  heard  of  the  debate  in  the  Lords  on 
the  Essay  on  Woman.  When  the  question  of 
Wilkes'  Parliamentary  privilege  was  raised  on 
November  23,  obviously  with  a  retrospective 
and  vindictive  purpose,  he  spoke  strongly  against 
its   surrender.      "No   man   could    condemn   the 

^  Walpole's  Memoirs  of  George  the  Third,  i.  312. 


no  CHATHAM 

North  Briton  more  than  he  did ;  but  he  would 
come  at  the  author  fairly,  not  by  an  open  breach 
of  the  Constitution  and-  a  contempt  of  all  re- 
straint." Pitt  had  no  sympathy  with  the  mob- 
worship  which  Wilkes  was  beginning  to  receive, 
and  detested  both  his  character  and  his  virulent 
journalism.  At  the  same  time  he  firmly  main- 
tained the  question  of  constitutional  principle. 
The  House  of  Commons,  he  said,  had  no  business 
to  vote  away  the  inherent  rights  of  future 
members  ;  and  in  the  debates  on  the  legality  of 
general  warrants  which  followed  he  spoke  his 
mind  still  more  freely,  protesting  against  the 
sacrifice  by  Parliament  of  its  own  privileges  and 
its  abandonment  of  the  liberty  of  the  subject. 
These  declarations  foreshadowed  his  greater 
deliverances  on  the  subject  in  1770.  For  a  time 
the  case  of  Wilkes  disappears  from  the  scene. 
Important  as  were  the  questions  which  it  had 
raised,  they  were  small  in  comparison  with  the 
transcendent  issues  involved  in  the  proposal  to 
tax  America,  which  was  now  by  the  unwisdom  of 
George  Grenville  brought  within  the  sphere  of 
practical  politics. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    TAXATION    OF    AMERICA 

England's  colonial  policy — Its  effect  upon  America — Gren- 
ville's  attitude — The  Stamp  Act — Pitt  in  retirement — 
Sir  W.  Pynsent's  legacy — Pitt  at  Burton  Pynsent — 
Again  approached  to  form  a  Cabinet — Pitt  and  Temple 
— The  Rockingham  Ministry — America's  reception  of 
the  Stamp  Act — Pitt  and  the  Rockinghams — His  views 
on  party — First  speeches  on  America — Repeal  of  the 
Stamp  Act. 

THE  British  conquest  of  Canada  had  brought 
about  a  change  in  the  relations  between  the 
American  colonies  and  the  mother  country  which 
was  vast,  even  if  its  full  significance  was  not  yet 
realised.  It  had  removed  the  incubus  of  French 
aggression,  and  opened  to  the  colonists  the  pos- 
sibility of  unchecked  expansion  from  sea  to  sea. 
In  so  doing  it  had  removed  also  their  chief  need 
of  British  succour,  and  henceforward,  whatever 
tie  of  political  union  still  remained,  they  were 
no  longer  dependent  on  England  for  actual  ex- 
istence.    Separation  thus   became  feasible,  but, 

HI 


112  CHATHAM 

though  foreign  observers  confidently  predicted  it^ 
it  was  as  yet  only  a  dream,  and  in  no  sense  repre- 
sented the  desires  of  the  American  people. 

The  true  cause  of  the  final  rupture  lay  in  the 
old  colonial  system,  which  looked  upon  the 
colonies  as  simply  so  many  tributary  estates. 
British  policy  had  been  ever  since  the  Navigation 
Act  of  1660,  as  Burke  said,  purely  commercial, 
and  to  be  commercial  it  had,  according  to  the 
spirit  of  the  age,  been  restrictive.  Like  all  other 
European  countries  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
England  was  a  monopolist  in  the  matter  of  colonial 
trade.  Thus  in  the  case  of  America  the  develop- 
ment of  all  industries  which  could  compete  with 
English  manufactures — from  iron  and  steel  pro- 
ducts to  woollen  goods  and  hats — was  barred  by 
legal  enactment.  The  exchange  of  American 
timber  for  the  sugar  and  molasses  of  the  French 
West  Indies  was  prohibited  in  order  to  preserve 
the  sugar  monopoly  of  the  English  West  Indies, 
which  themselves  could  only  afford  a  very  in- 
adequate market  for  the  Americans.  Very  many 
American  articles  might  only  be  exported  to 
the  home  market  in  England,  and  no  Conti- 
nental articles  might  be  imported  by  the  colonists 
unless  they  had  first  been  landed  and  paid  duty 
in  England.  Such  was  the  spirit  of  British 
monopoly,  but  America  was  not  without  her 
consolations.     She  had  bounties  on  the  importa- 


THE  TAXATION  OF  AMERICA     113 

tion  into  England  of  her  ship-timber,  her  pitch 
and  tar ;  by  exemption  from  duties  on  certain 
articles  she  herself  monopolised  the  British 
market  in  respect  of  these ;  the  grievance  with 
regard  to  Continental  goods  was  alleviated  by 
means  of  drawbacks  ;  and  in  practice  the  restraint 
on  her  commerce  with  the  French  West  Indies 
was  virtually  evaded. 

This  was  America's  commercial  lot ;  she  bore 
it  because  she  had  known  no  other,  and  because 
it  was  in  accordance  with  the  universal  custom 
of  the  time.  It  had  not  prevented  her  from 
attaining  prosperity ;  but  all  practicable  mitiga- 
tion, and  all  possible  indifference  on  the  part  of 
British  statesmen  to  her  contraband  trade,  were 
needed  to  make  it  tolerable.  Such  indifference 
English  Ministers  had  characteristically  seldom 
failed  to  show.  But,  clearly,  the  greater  America 
grew  the  more  unbearable  would  commercial 
restriction  become,  and  a  conflict  was  inevitable 
if  fresh  irritating  impositions  should  be  super- 
added to  those  already  existing.  For  this  there 
had  now  arrived  both  the  hour  and  the  man. 
England  had  emerged  from  the  Seven  Years'  War 
an  empire,  but  an  empire  burdened  with  a  great 
debt ;  and  she  had  before  her  the  difficult  task, 
not  only  of  organising  efficient  Imperial  defence 
but  of  economising  its  expenses.  The  Minister 
in  control  of  her  affairs  at  this  supremely  import- 
8 


114  CHATHAM 

ant  moment  was  George  Grenville.  Of  all  men 
he  was  the  least  likely  to  make  graceful  conces- 
sions, the  most  resolute  to  stand  on  the  strict 
letter  of  the  law.  On  the  present  occasion  his 
very  merits  contained  elements  of  danger ;  but 
for  his  strong  sense  of  duty  and  his  legal  abilities, 
his  want  of  political  prescience  would  have  been 
less  fatal.  Having  found  that  the  customs  reve- 
nue actually  derived  from  America  was  costing 
four  times  its  own  value  in  collection,  and  that  the 
commercial  regulations  were  freely  infringed  by 
the  colonists,  he  revived  the  strict  enforcement 
of  the  trade  laws,  and  made  it  part  of  the  duty  of 
all  naval  officers  stationed  off  the  American  coasts 
to  act  as  revenue  officials  and  repress  smuggling. 
At  the  same  time  he  determined  to  maintain  a  per- 
manent army  in  America,  and  by  Parliamentary 
taxation  to  make  the  colonies  contribute  towards 
its  maintenance.  This  was  the  origin  of  the  ill- 
omened  Stamp  Act.  In  March  1764  Grenville 
introduced  and  carried  a  motion  to  the  effect  that 
"  for  further  defraying  the  expense  of  protecting 
the  colonies  it  may  be  proper  to  charge  certain 
stamp  duties  in  the  said  colonies."  Then  for  a 
year  the  matter  was  suspended,  so  that  the 
colonists  might  have  time  to  consider  it  and 
suggest  any  other  method  of  raising  the  money 
which  seemed  preferable  to  them.  The  tradi- 
tional mode  of  contribution  was  by  separate  grants 


THE  TAXATION  OF  AMERICA     115 

on  the  part  of  the  colonial  assemblies  in  response 
to  a  requisition  from  the  Crown,  and  Benjamin 
Franklin  urged  Grenville  to  resort  to  it  again. 
Franklin  had,  however,  to  admit,  when  pressed  by 
the  Minister,  that  the  colonies  would  never  agree 
on  the  proportionate  sum  which  each  should  raise. 

This  was  the  last  diplomatic  effort  on  the  part 
of  the  colonial  agents  in  England  ;  the  colonial 
assemblies  in  America  were  wholly  recalcitrant. 
In  February  1765  Grenville  brought  in  the  Bill, 
which  was  received  in  a  scanty  House  with  very 
languid  interest,  and  passed  almost  without 
opposition.  It  provided  that  all  business  agree- 
ments, legal  documents,  and  newspapers  should 
be  issued  upon  stamped  paper  only,  which  was  to 
be  sold  by  public  distributors  at  fixed  rates.  The 
revenue  resulting  was  to  be  paid  into  the  Treasury 
and  applied  solely  to  the  maintenance  of  colonial 
defence.  The  Admiralty  Courts  were  to  ad- 
judicate on  offenders  under  the  Act,  which  was 
to  come  into  operation  on  November  1. 

While  Parliament  was  unconsciously  voting 
away  its  colonies,  and  the  colonies  themselves 
were  fermenting  with  alarm,  Pitt  was  buried  in 
seclusion.  For  long  he  was  laid  up  with  gout  at 
Hayes.  The  contrast  between  his  present  deep 
retirement  and  his  recent  splendid  Ministiy  struck 
the  imagination  ;  the  people  waited  for  his  return 
to  office  in  order  to  yield  him  a  ready  allegiance. 


ii6  CHATHAM 

and  some  admirers,  following  the  example  of  the 
old  Duchess  of  Marlborough  twenty  years  before, 
gave  substantial  form  to  their  esteem.  Mr.  Allen 
of  Prior  Park,  near  Bath,  left  him  a  legacy  of 
£1000  in  1764,  and  in  1765  he  received  a  strange 
and  unexpected  bequest  on  the  death  of  an  aged 
Somersetshire  baronet.  Sir  William  Pynsent  had 
abandoned  politics  and  the  town  when  the  Tory 
party  rose  to  power  in  the  last  years  of  Queen  Anne, 
and  in  the  Treaty  of  Paris  he  now  seemed  to  see  a 
peace  not  less  ignominious  than  that  of  Utrecht, 
and  a  second  Marlborough  in  its  victim,  Pitt. 
To  Pitt  accordingly  he  left  his  estate  of  Burton 
Pynsent,  which  was  worth  some  £3000  a  year. 

Round  Burton  Pynsent  centred  henceforward 
much  of  Pitt's  private  life.  He  was  never  so 
happy  as  when  in  country  scenes,  and  certainly 
never  so  well  as  when  he  spent  his  days  scouring 
the  hills  with  his  children,  following  them,  "  longo 
sed  proximus  intervallo,  after  a  hare,"  or  led  on  by 
"  the  all-exploring  eye  of  taste,"  and  coming 
home  in  the  evening  to  supper  with,  as  he  said,  a 
farmer's  appetite.  He  shared  the  fashionable 
passion  for  landscape-gardening,  in  which  Bishop 
Warburton  pronounced  his  taste  inimitable,  and 
at  Burton  Pynsent  he  could  indulge  it  to  the  full. 
Here  too  he  gathered  memorials  of  the  kind  he 
loved  to  treasure.  He  hung  the  ballroom  of 
Burton  Pynsent  with  full-length  portraits  of  the 


THE  TAXATION  OF  AMERICA     117 

Marquis  of  Granby,  Admiral  Boscawen,  and 
Admiral  Saunders,  to  recall  the  service  they  had 
rendered  in  the  hour  of  England's  glory  and  his 
own,  when,  in  Cowper's  words — 

•'....  It  was  praise  and  boast  enough 
In  every  clime,  and  travel  where  we  might, 
That  we  were  born  her  children  ;  praise  enough 
To  fill  the  ambition  of  a  private  man. 
That  Chatham's  language  was  his  mother  tongue. 
And  Wolfe's  great  name  compatriot  with  his  own."' 

In  the  spring  of  1765  Pitt  was  again  ap- 
proached to  form  a  Ministry.  The  cause  was  not 
the  administrative  errors  of  the  Government,  but 
the  King's  impatience  under  the  ever-tightening 
hand  of  Grenville.  The  insult  inflicted  by  the 
Ministers  on  his  mother,  the  Princess  Dowager, 
whose  name  they  excluded  from  the  list  of 
possible  Regents  in  the  Bill  which  was  brought 
forward  after  his  first  illness,  goaded  him  to 
distraction.  He  turned  to  the  uncle  whom  he 
had  before  treated  so  badly,  the  Duke  of  Cumber- 
land, and  empowered  him  to  negotiate  with  Pitt. 
Both  Lord  Albemarle  and  the  Duke  were  sent  to 
see  him.  To  them  Pitt  unfolded  his  policy, 
which  embraced  a  counter-alliance  against  the 
Bourbons  abroad  and  the  reversal  of  unconstitu- 
tional measures  at  home.     He  does  not  seem  to 

^  For  Chatham  at  Burton  Pynsent  cf.  Chatham  Correspondence, 
iii.  469,  470;  iv.  183-185,  231,  232,  267-269. 


ii8  CHATHAM 

have  been  at  all  reluctant  to  take  office.  But 
the  situation  was  greatly  complicated  by  the  fact 
that  Lord  Temple  had  just  effected  a  reconcili- 
ation with  his  brother  George  Grenville,  and 
aspired  to  form  a  Ministry  based  on  the  family 
triumvirate  of  himself,  Grenville,  and  their 
brother-in-law  Pitt.  If  Temple  had  stood  alone 
these  designs  would  not  have  mattered,  but  his 
close  union  with  Pitt  gave  them  grave  importance. 
Behind  Pitt  the  baleful  star  of  Temple  is 
generally  visible,  and  never  did  it  exercise  a  more 
fatal  attraction  than  in  the  spring  and  summer 
of  1765.  Through  Temple's  influence  Pitt  now 
declined  to  move.  George  in.  had  once  more  to 
submit  to  Grenville  and  Bedford,  and  King  and 
Ministers  treated  each  other  with  relentless 
rudeness.  So  intolerable  was  the  position  that 
the  King  a  second  time  appealed  to  Pitt.  Once 
more  Temple  refused  to  take  office  with  him. 
"This  declaration  of  Lord  Temple's,"  wrote  the 
Duke  of  Cumberland  to  Albemarle  on  June  26, 
"  prevents  Pitt  from  taking  a  share,  which  indeed 
most  thoroughly  and  most  heartily  he  had 
done.  .  •  .  By  what  I  can  pick  up,  Pitt  is  com- 
pletely mortified,  and  I  am  heartily  sorry  for  it,  as 
he  had  entered  more  sincerely  and  cordially  into 
the  King's  service,  nay,  and  went  further  almost 
than  the  King's  views."  ^ 

^  Rockingham  Memoirt,  l.  213,  2 1 4. 


THE  TAXATION  OF  AMERICA     119 

Nevertheless,  it  was  the  Whigs,  though  the 
Whigs  without  Pitt  and  Temple,  who  eventually 
set  the  King  free  from  Grenville.  Their  main 
connection  took  office  under  the  Marquis  of 
Rockingham,  who  had  Conway  and  the  Duke  of 
Grafton  as  his  Secretaries  of  State,  while  the  old 
Duke  of  Newcastle  was  included  in  the  Ministry 
as  Privy  Seal.  As  an  administration  it  was  far 
from  strong,  though  the  lustrous  eloquence  of 
Burke,  whom  it  brought  into  politics,  has  cast 
a  halo  round  its  mediocrity.  Rockingham  was  a 
timid  and  embarrassed  speaker ;  Conway,  who 
led  the  House  of  Commons,  was  a  gallant  soldier 
but  no  statesman ;  Grafton,  though  a  man  of 
promise,  cared  more  for  sport  than  politics,  and 
was  really  a  follower  not  of  Rockingham  but  of 
Pitt.  Further,  the  Ministry  contained  an  alien 
element  in  the  young  and  brilliant  Charles 
Townshend,  who,  though  Paymaster,  spoke  of  the 
Cabinet  with  disdain ;  and  in  Lord  Chancellor 
Northington  and  Lord  Barrington,  Secretary  for 
War,  who  were  both  sworn  followers  of  the  King. 
Yet,  morally,  the  Rockingham  Whigs  them- 
selves stood  head  and  shoulders  above  preceding 
Ministries.  They  not  only  professed  but  practised 
political  integrity,  and,  short  as  was  their  tenure 
of  office,  and  stubbornly  as  they  were  thwarted  by 
the  King,  they  succeeded  in  carrying  most  sorely 
needed  measures. 


I20  CHATHAM 

The  great  problem  before  the  new  Ministers,  un- 
conscious of  it  as,  when  they  took  office,  they  seem 
to  have  been,  was  the  American  question.  The 
tidings  of  the  passing  of  the  Stamp  Act  set  the 
colonies  ablaze,  and  that  union  which  Indian  war 
and  French  menaces  had  been  unable  to  inspire 
was  automatically  produced  by  the  imminence 
of  this  common  danger.  Nine  States  sent  repre- 
sentatives to  a  congress  at  New  York  in  October 
1 765,  and  in  petitions  to  the  King  and  Parliament 
and  a  Declaration  of  Right  they  set  forth  the  case 
for  America.  It  was,  they  held,  "inseparably 
essential  to  the  freedom  of  a  people,  and  the  un- 
doubted right  of  Englishmen,  that  no  taxes  be 
imposed  on  them  but  with  their  own  consent, 
given  personally  or  by  their  representatives." 
They  themselves,  however,  were  not,  and  by  the 
nature  of  circumstances  never  could  be,  repre- 
sented in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  it  followed, 
therefore,  that  the  British  Parliament  could  not 
tax  them.  Besides  these  calm  constitutional 
protests  there  were  violent  disturbances,  which 
forced  the  hand  of  the  moderate  party.  There 
was  rioting  at  Boston  and  much  burning  of 
effigies,  and,  more  seriously,  the  burning  of  Chief 
Justice  Hutchinson's  house.  Stamp  distributors 
were  terrorised  out  of  their  posts,  and  the  stamps 
themselves  were  not  allowed  to  circulate.  To 
put  an  end  to  the  entire  block  in  public  business 


THE  TAXATION  OF  AMERICA     121 

which  resulted,  the  Governors  were  obliged  to 
authorise  non-compliance  with  the  Act.  The 
American  merchants  also  took  retaliatory  steps 
which  touched  England  more  nearly.  They 
boycotted  British  goods  and  repudiated  their 
debts  to  British  merchants  while  the  obnoxious 
Act  remained  in  force.  This  course  of  action  had 
the  effect  of  converting  the  whole  trading  com- 
munity of  Great  Britain  to  a  belief  in  the  necessity 
for  its  repeal. 

The  effectiveness  of  the  Ministry  in  dealing 
with  the  American  question  mainly  depended  on 
Pitt's  attitude  towards  them.  Without  him  any 
fabric  of  reform  that  they  might  raise  would  be 
built  upon  the  sand.  If  he  joined  them  he 
would  bring  with  him  the  enthusiastic  support 
of  the  people,  and,  led  by  his  genius  and  backed 
by  a  united  public  opinion,  they  might  hold  down 
the  forces  of  coercion  and  prerogative.  In  the 
light  that  we  now  possess  of  the  policy  of  George 
the  Third  it  is  impossible  to  resist  Burke's  con- 
clusion that  the  supreme  need  of  the  time  was  a 
stable  and  cohesive  party.  Nothing  else  could 
combat  successfully  the  systematic  corruption 
practised  by  the  Court,  or  put  an  end  to  the 
aimless  disunion  and  selfish  apathy  among  the 
chief  political  groups  which  made  that  coiTuption 
possible.  Pitt  was  offered  a  unique  chance  of 
consolidating    such    a    party.       It    was    unique. 


122  CHATHAM 

because  the  body  of  statesmen  which  now  invited 
him  to  join  them  was  the  only  one  which  could 
point  to  a  record  of  untarnished  honour.  But  he 
gave  no  sign,  and  deliberately  drew  back  from 
the  opportunity.  The  new  Ministers  consulted 
him  repeatedly  and  conciliated  him  by  distinguish- 
ing his  friends.  It  was  again  and  again  made 
clear  to  him  that  if  he  was  willing  to  lead  he 
had  only  to  place  himself  at  their  head.  His 
only  response  was  to  write  letter  after  letter  to 
his  friends  during  the  last  half  of  1765  expressing 
a  rooted  distrust  of  Newcastle,  and  at  most  to 
send  to  Grafton  "the  best  wishes  of  a  Somerset- 
shire bystander."  ^ 

Mere  physical  causes  had  no  doubt  something 
to  do  with  this  strange  reluctance.  Incessant 
fits  of  gout,  operating  on  a  highly  strung  and 
excitable  temperament,  had  produced  the  be- 
ginning of  that  extreme  nervous  tension  which  in 
1767  developed  into  complete  prostration.  His 
naturally  indocile  temper  became  almost  im- 
practicable. Illness  had  impaired  his  grasp  of 
realities,  for  the  image  of  the  pervading  influence 
of  Newcastle  which  he  conjured  up  was  the 
phantom  of  a  distorted  brain.  At  the  same  time 
we  cannot  say  with  any  certainty  that  if  his 
brain  had  been  unclouded  he  would  have  acted 
differently.     For  his  attitude  was  quite  consistent 

1  Anson's  Grafton,  p.  59. 


THE  TAXATION  OF  AMERICA     123 

with  his  peculiar  views  on  party.  It  is  abundantly 
clear  from  his  correspondence,  that,  so  far  from 
desiring  to  act  always  in  concert  with  any 
particular  set  of  politicians,  he  preferred  to  stand 
alone,  or,  at  most,  to  draw  support  from  all 
quarters  without  much  regard  for  the  homo- 
geneousness  of  his  following.  For  party,  as  such, 
he  never  professed  to  care.  There  was  thus  a 
strong  superficial  resemblance  between  his  own 
methods  and  those  of  George  the  Third,  but  Pitt's 
ideal  was  very  different  to  the  King's.  He 
desired  a  union  of  ability  in  the  service  of  the 
country,  without  respect  of  persons.  It  is  an 
ideal  with  which  nowadays  we  can  ourselves 
sympathise,  for,  though  Ministries  of  all  the 
talents  have  not  been  among  the  most  successful 
in  history,  it  takes  a  hearty  conservatism  to  admit 
that  the  party  system  represents  the  final  and 
completed  effort  of  political  development.  More 
than  one  cause  had  probably  contributed  so  to 
shape  Pitt's  views.  In  his  War  Ministry  he  had 
united  several  varieties  and  shades  of  opinion  in 
the  support  of  his  policy,  and  he  himself  ac- 
knowledged the  loyal  help  which  the  Tories  had 
given  him.  For  the  great  family  connections, 
which,  though  supposed  to  form  the  nucleus  of 
the  Whigs,  were  generally  oscillating  to  and  fro 
in  pursuit  of  patronage  and  public  money,  he  felt 
a  growing  disdain.     It  may  be   urged  that  the 


124  CHATHAM 

Whigs  proper  were  at  this  time  reduced  to  the 
blameless  circle  of  the  Rockinghams,  and  that 
the  party  which  Pitt  was  asked  to  reconstruct 
was  thus  free  from  the  features  of  Whiggism 
which  he  most  disliked.  That  even  under  these 
circumstances  he  forbore  to  join  it,  shows  that 
his  distaste  for  party  was  all-embracing. 

But,  though  he .  stood  thus  persistently  alone, 
his  utterances  on  the  Peace  of  Paris  had  not  been 
more  eagerly  awaited  than  was  his  first  pronounce- 
ment upon  America.  He  was  at  the  parting  of 
the  ways.  No  definite  decision  had  been  taken  ; 
Rockingham,  with  Grafton  and  Conway,  preferred 
the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  but  the  King,  the 
Court  party,  and  its  adherents  within  the 
Rockingham  Cabinet,  threw  their  weight  on  the 
other  side.  George  Grenville  was  committed  to 
the  enforcement  of  his  own  Act,  and  of  course 
denounced  repeal.  The  debates  of  December 
1765  had  done  little  to  clear  up  matters. 

When  Parliament  met  after  the  Christmas 
recess  on  Januaiy  14,  1766,  Pitt  was  in  his 
place.  There  followed  one  of  the  historic  debates 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  one  for  which 
America  was  listening  not  less  anxiously  than 
England.  Pitt  delivered  two  great  speeches  in 
the  course  of  it,  and  they  show  his  mastery  of 
lucid  argument,  and  still  more  the  height  of 
inspiration  to  which  he  was  capable  of  rising  in 


THE  TAXATION  OF  AMERICA     125 

reply.  He  began  his  first  speech  by  emphasising 
the  fact  that  he  stood  there  "  single  and  uncon- 
nected." He  denounced  the  late  Ministry^  saying 
that  every  capital  measure  they  had  taken  was 
wrong.  He  discomfited  the  Rockinghams  with  a 
characteristic  expression  of  want  of  confidence, 
which  was  all  the  more  embarrassing  because 
it  was  couched  in  strains  of  eulogy.  Their 
characters  were  fair,  he  said,  and  he  was  always 
glad  when  men  of  fair  character  engaged  in  the 
King's  service.  "They  will  do  me  the  justice 
to  own  I  advised  them  to  engage ;  but,  notwith- 
standing— I  love  to  be  explicit — I  cannot  give 
them  my  confidence:  pardon  me,  gentlemen, 
confidence  is  a  plant  of  slow  growth  in  an  aged 
bosom  ;  youth  is  the  season  of  credulity." 

Then,  discarding  personalities,  he  plunged  into 
the  heart  of  the  American  question  : — 

"When  the  resolution  was  taken  in  the  House 
to  tax  America,  I  was  ill  in  bed.  If  I  could  have 
endured  to  have  been  carried  in  my  bed,  so  great 
was  the  agitation  of  my  mind  for  the  conse- 
quences, I  would  have  solicited  some  kind  hand 
to  have  laid  me  down  on  this  floor,  to  have 
borne  my  testimony  against  it.  It  is  now  an  Act 
that  has  passed.  I  would  speak  with  decency  of 
every  Act  of  this  House,  but  I  must  beg  the 
indulgence  of  the  House  to  speak  of  it  with 
freedom.     I  hope  a  day  may  soon  be  appointed 


126  CHATHAM 

to  consider  the  state  of  the  nation  with  respect 
to  America.  I  hope  gentlemen  will  come  to  this 
debate  with  all  the  temper  and  impartiaUty 
that  his  Majesty  recommends  and  the  import- 
ance of  the  subject  requires — a  subject  of  greater 
importance  than  ever  engaged  the  attention 
of  the  House,  that  subject  only  excepted  when 
nearly  a  century  ago  it  was  a  question  whether 
you  yourselves  were  to  be  bond  or  free.  .  .  . 
I  will  only  speak  to  one  point — a  point  which 
seems  not  to  have  been  generally  understood  ; 
I  mean,  to  the  right.  .  .  .  It  is  my  opinion  that  this 
kingdom  has  no  right  to  lay  a  tax  upon  the  colonies. 
At  the  same  time  I  assert  the  authority  of  this 
kingdom  over  the  colonies  to  be  sovereign  and 
supreme  in  every  circumstance  of  government  and 
legislation  whatever.  Taxation  is  no  part  of  the 
governing  or  legislative  power.  The  taxes  are 
a  voluntary  gift  and  grant  of  the  Commons 
alone.  ...  The  idea  of  a  virtual  representation  of 
America  in  this  House  is  the  most  contemptible 
that  ever  entered  into  the  head  of  a  man.  It 
does  not  deserve  a  serious  refutation.  The 
Commons  of  America,  represented  in  their  several 
assemblies,  have  ever  been  in  possession  of  the 
exercise  of  this  their  constitutional  right,  of 
giving  and  granting  their  own  money.  They 
would  have  been  slaves  if  they  had  not  enjoyed 
it.  ...  I  never  shall  own  the  justice  of  taxing 


THE  TAXATION  OF  AMERICA     127 

America  internally  until  she  enjoys  the  right  of 
representation.  In  every  other  point  of  legisla- 
tion the  authority  of  Parliament  is  like  the  north 
star,  fixed  for  the  reciprocal  benefit  of  the  parent 
country  and  her  colonies." 

Pitt  thus  took  his  stand  firmly  on  the  in- 
dissoluble connection  between  taxation  and  re- 
presentation. Grenville  in  his  reply  asserted 
that  the  right  of  taxation  was  included  in  the 
sovereign  Power,  and  that  Parliament,  as 
sovereign,  could  therefore  tax  the  colonies. 
Legally  his  position  was  irrefragable,  and  doubt- 
less Pitt  was  unwise  in  attempting  to  rest  his 
case  so  much  as  he  did  upon  considerations  of 
constitutional  law,  though  in  his  justification  it 
must  be  remembered  that  the  chief  judicial 
authority  on  his  side.  Lord  Camden,  indulged  in 
even  more  vmrestrained  language  against  the 
validity  of  Grenville's  view.  But  there  was  a 
broad  ground  of  policy  in  Pitt's  utterances 
which  Grenville  never  seriously  touched.  Gren- 
ville moved  in  a  world  of  formulas  and  abstrac- 
tions, and,  having  discovered  that  it  was  not 
absolutely  unconstitutional  to  tax  the  colonies, 
resolved  to  enforce  his  decision  at  all  costs.  Pitt 
looked  at  the  concrete  case.  He  discerned  that 
the  spirit  which  animated  American  resistance 
was  one  with  the  principle  which  throughout 
English  history  had  prompted   the  most  famous 


128  CHATHAM 

vindications  of  popular  right  against  prerogative, 
and  he  saw  that  coercion  would  be  disastrous  and 
impossible,  and  that  nothing  less  than  the  unity 
of  the  empire  was  at  stake.  This  is  brought  out 
more  fully  in  his  reply.  Rising  a  second  time, 
with  characteristic  disregard  of  Parliamentary 
conventions,  to  answer  Grenville,  he  poured  forth 
a  torrent  of  eloquence  which  decided  the 
immediate  question  of  repeal  and  left  an  in- 
effaceable impression  on  America. 

"The  gentleman  tells  us  America  is  obstinate, 
America  is  almost  in  open  rebellion.  I  rejoice 
that  America  has  resisted.  Three  millions  of 
people  so  dead  to  all  the  feelings  of  liberty  as 
voluntarily  to  submit  to  be  slaves,  would  have 
been  fit  instruments  to  make  slaves  of  the  rest. 
I  come  not  here  armed  at  all  points  with  law  cases 
and  Acts  of  Parliament ;  with  the  Statute  Book 
doubled  down  in  dogs'  ears,  to  defend  the  cause  of 
liberty.  ...  If  the  gentleman  does  not  luiderstand 
the  difference  between  internal  and  external 
taxes,  I  cannot  help  it.  But  there  is  a  plain 
distinction  between  taxes  levied  for  the  purpose 
of  raising  a  revenue,  and  duties  imposed  for  the 
regulation  of  trade  for  the  accommodation  of  the 
subject ;  although  in  the  consequences  some 
revenue  might  accidentally  arise  from  the  latter. 
The  gentleman  asks.  When  were  the  colonies 
emancipated  ?     I  desire  to  know  when  they  were 


THE  TAXATION  OF  AMERICA     129 

made  slaves.  But  I  dwell  not  upon  words. 
When  I  had  the  honour  of  serving  his  Majesty, 
I  availed  myself  of  the  means  of  information 
which  I  derived  from  my  office;  I  speak,  there- 
fore, from  knowledge.  My  materials  were  good  ; 
I  was  at  pains  to  collect,  to  digest,  to  consider 
them  ;  and  I  will  be  bold  to  affirm  that  the  profit 
to  Great  Britain  from  the  trade  of  the  colonies 
is  two  millions  a  year.  This  is  the  fund  that 
carried  you  triumphantly  through  the  last  war. 
And  shall  a  miserable  financier  come  with  a 
boast  that  he  can  bring  a  peppercorn  into  the 
exchequer,  to  the  loss  of  millions  to  the  nation  ? 
I  dare  not  say  how  much  higher  these  profits 
may  be  augmented.  Omitting  the  immense 
increase  of  people  by  natural  population  in  the 
northern  colonies  and  the  migration  from  every 
part  of  Europe,  I  am  convinced  the  whole  com- 
mercial system  may  be  altered  to  advantage.  A 
great  deal  has  been  said,  without  doors,  of  the 
strength  of  America.  It  is  a  topic  that  ought  to 
be  cautiously  meddled  with.  In  a  good  cause, 
on  a  sotuid  bottom,  the  force  of  this  country  can 
crush  America  to  atoms.  But  on  this  ground,  on 
the  Stamp  Act,  when  so  many  here  will  think  it 
a  crying  injustice,  I  am  one  who  will  lift  up  my 
hands  against  it.  In  such  a  cause  your  success 
would  be  hazardous.  America,  if  she  fell,  would 
fall  like  the  strong  man.  She  would  embrace 
9 


I30  CHATHAM 

the  pillars  of  the  State,  and  pull  down  the  Con- 
stitution along  with  her.  Is  this  your  boasted 
peace  ?  Not  to  sheathe  the  sword  in  its 
scabbard,  but  to  sheathe  it  in  the  bowels  of  your 
countrymen  ?  The  Americans  have  not  acted  in 
all  things  with  prudence  and  temper.  They  have 
been  driven  to  madness  by  injustice.  Will  you 
punish  them  for  the  madness  you  have  occasioned  ? 
Rather  let  prudence  and  temper  come  first  from 
this  side.  I  will  undertake  for  America  that  she 
will  follow  the  example. 

'  Be  to  her  faults  a  little  blind, 
Be  to  her  virtues  very  kind.' 

Upon  the  whole,  I  will  beg  leave  to  tell  the 
House  what  is  really  my  opinion.  It  is  that 
the  Stamp  Act  be  repealed  absolutely,  totally,  and 
immediately ;  that  the  reason  for  the  repeal  be 
assigned,  because  it  was  founded  on  an  erroneous 
principle.  At  the  same  time  let  the  sovereign 
authority  of  this  country  over  the  colonies  be 
asserted  in  as  strong  terms  as  can  be  devised,  and 
be  made  to  extend  to  every  point  of  legislation 
whatever  ;  that  we  may  bind  their  trade,  confine 
their  manufactures,  and  exercise  every  power 
whatsoever,  except  that  of  taking  their  money 
out  of  their  pockets  without  their  own  consent."  ^ 
Repeal  was  henceforth  assured,  but  it  was  not 

^  Chatham  Correspondence ,  ii.  363-372. 


THE  TAXATION  OF  AMERICA     131 

carried  without  long  and  embittered  debates,  in 
which  the  influence  of  the  Court  was  turned 
unsparingly  against  the  Ministers.  The  King's 
Friends  openly  opposed  it,  and  the  King  himself 
ignored  Rockingham's  remonstrances  against  their 
conduct.  At  last  Lord  Strange  circulated  a 
rumour  that  repeal  was  contrary  to  his  Majesty's 
wishes,  whereupon  Rockingham  went  straight  to 
George  the  Third,  and  elicited  from  him  a  denial. 
Curious  memorials  of  this  survived  in  the  shape  of 
three  disavowals  in  the  King's  handwriting,  in 
the  last  of  which,  a  mere  scrap  of  paper,  and 
seemingly  part  of  the  cover  of  a  letter,  he  declares 
that,  though  he  would  have  preferred  modification, 
he  was  for  repeal  as  against  coercion.  It  was 
impossible  for  the  Ministers,  in  view  of  their  own 
weakness  and  the  contemptuous  disregard  which 
had  been  shown  by  the  Americans  for  the  late 
Acts,  to  carry  repeal  without  the  addition  of  a 
qualifying  measure.  Accordingly,  it  was  accom- 
panied by  a  Declaratory  Act  affirming  the  right 
of  Parliament  to  make  laws  binding  on  the 
colonies  in  all  cases,  without  exception.  But 
across  the  sea  this  implied  menace  was  held  as 
nothing  beside  the  immediate  boon  of  repeal, 
which  for  a  time  most  truly  pacified  the  people  of 
America. 


CHAPTER  VII 

PEERAGE^    MINISTRY,    AND    RETIREMENT 

Fall  of  the  Rockinghams — Pitt  induced  to  take  office — 
Composition  of  his  Ministry — He  becomes  Earl  of 
Chatham — His  foreign  policy — His  Indian  policy — His 
tactical  errors  as  a  party  leader — The  visit  to  Bath  and 
return — Townshend's  insubordination — Mental  eclipse 
of  Chatham — His  mysterious  malady — Grafton  visits 
him  at  Hampstead — Chatham  sinks  back  into  seclusion. 

PITT'S  American  speeches  had  once  more 
shown  how  indispensable  was  his  adhesion 
to  the  Rockingham  Ministiy  if  that  Ministry  was 
to  stand.  They  had  shown,  as  the  Prime 
Minister  said  in  a  letter  which  he  wrote  to  the 
King  the  day  after  the  great  debate,  "the 
amazing  powers  and  influence  "  of  Pitt  whenever 
he  chose  to  intervene.^  Overtures  to  him  were 
again  made,  but  again  ended  in  failure,  as  they 
were  bound  to  end ;  for  the  two  principal  parties 
were  at  cross  purposes,  Rockingham  wishing 
to  remain  titular  leader,  or  at  most  to  divide 
supremacy  with  Pitt,  and   Pitt   pronouncing  for 

*  Rockingham  Memoirs,  i.  270. 
132 


THE    .MARQUIS   OF    ROCKINGHAM 


PEERAGE,  MINISTRY,  RETIREMENT  133 

"  a  transposition  of  offices "  to  the  detriment 
of  Rockingham.^  In  February,  however,  Rocking- 
ham was  prepared  to  place  himself  in  Pitt's 
hands.  But  Pitt,  who  was  chagrined  by  the 
failure  of  the  earlier  negotiations,  declared  himself 
obdurate  to  all  but  the  express  command  of  the 
King ;  and  two  months  later  Rockingham  himself 
became  more  sanguine  as  to  the  maintenance  of 
his  Ministry,  and  again  moved  away  from  Pitt. 
Yet  in  fact  he  was  on  the  brink  of  his  fall.  In 
May,  Grafton  resigned,  carrying  himself  over 
avowedly  to  the  camp  of  Pitt,  where  in  spirit  he 
had  always  been.  In  July  the  Chancellor,  Lord 
Northington,  who  as  a  King's  Friend  had  been  a 
focus  of  disaffection  within  the  Cabinet,  finally 
broke  away,  and,  this  done,  George  the  Third 
promptly  dismissed  his  Ministers, 

He  then  turned  to  Pitt,  very  much  as  he  had 
done  in  1763.  But  he  was  now  far  more  insidious 
and  more  dangerous.  In  1763  he  had  not 
matured  his  policy,  and  sought  mainly  an  escape 
from  Grenville ;  now  he  had  set  his  system  in 
full  and  successful  operation,  and  in  Pitt  he 
discerned  an  unconscious  instrument.  Skilfully 
and  fatally  did  he  work  on  the  apparent  coinci- 
dence between  Pitt's  maxim  of  "measures,  not 
men,"  and  his  own  design  of  "  routing  out  the 
present   system   of    parties    banding    together." 

1  Anson's  Grafton,  p.  67. 


J34  CHATHAM 

Pitt's  course  of  action  at  this  juncture  does  more 
credit  to  his  heart  than  to  his  head.  It  is 
astonishing  that  he  should  have  allowed  his 
regard  for  the  King  to  blind  him  to  the  inherent 
and  disastrous  flaws  of  the  administration  he 
was  called  upon  to  form.  But  it  was  one  of  his 
weaknesses  to  be  dazzled  by  the  attributes  of 
Royalty.  How  deep  wasliis  dejection  under  the 
"irremovable  Royal  displeasure"  of  George  the 
Second  in  1754  we  have  already  seen.  Whig  as 
he  was,  no  believer  in  the  divine  right  of  kings 
in  Stuart  days  venerated  more  devoutly  than 
he  "the  deputy  elected  by  the  Lord."  While 
his  language  to  his  colleagues  was  pronounced 
by  Conway  to  be  of  an  autocratic  kind  seldom 
heard  west  of  Constantinople,  he  approached 
his  sovereign  in  a  spirit  of  abasement  that  was 
similarly  Oriental.  It  was  part  of  the  florid  and 
fantastic  element  in  his  character,  akin  to  the 
pomp  and  circumstance  and  mystery  with  which 
he  surrounded  himself  in  his  journey  through  the 
world. 

The  miscellaneous  nature  of  his  new  Cabinet 
can  only  be  appreciated  by  examining  its 
component  parts  in  detail.  It  contained  a  solid 
substratum  of  King's  Friends.  Northington 
became  Lord  President.  Harrington  remained 
Secretary  for  War.  Lord  North,  now  coming 
forward   into   ill-starred    prominence,   was    Joint 


PEERAGE,  MINISTRY,  RETIREMENT  135 

Paymaster  of  the  Forces.  Charles  Townshend, 
whose  American  policy  was  diametrically  opposed 
to  Pitt's,  was  made  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer. 
At  the  same  time  Pitt  took  from  the  Rockingham 
party  Conway,  who  resumed  his  former  office  of 
Secretary  of  State,  and  Grafton,  who  became 
First  Lord  of  the  Treasury.  For  his  Chancellor 
he  had  Lord  Camden,  who,  as  Chief  Justice  Pratt, 
had  decided  in  the  Wilkes  case  in  favour  of 
popular  right,  and  was  one  of  the  chief  advocates 
of  a  liberal  policy  towards  America.  He  attracted 
also  the  clever  but  inscrutable  Shelburne,  and  his 
follower  Barre,  who,  after  signalising  his  entry 
into  public  life  by  stormy  declamations  against 
Pitt,  had  found  salvation  when  the  clamour  over 
Wilkes  arose.  Only  one  figure  was  lacking  which 
could  possibly  have  made  the  Ministry  more 
dissonant,  and  that  was  Temple.  His  self- 
importance  now  received  a  chastisement  that  was 
only  unfortunate  because  it  came  so  late.  Pitt 
offered  him  the  Treasury,  but  Temple  would  be 
content  with  nothing  less  than  an  absolute 
equality  with  Pitt  in  allotting  the  various  posts  in 
the  Cabinet.  This,  Pitt  had  the  firmness  to 
decline,  whereupon  Temple's  injured  vanity  ex- 
ploded in  inspired  pamphlets  and  sarcastic  private 
letters  that  commented  indignantly  on  ''the 
proposition  of  being  stuck  into  a  Ministry  as  a 
great  cipher  at  the  head  of  the  Treasury,  sur- 


136  CHATHAM 

rounded  by  other  ciphers,  all  named  by  Mr.  Pitt, 
of  different  complexion  with  me."  ^ 

So  diverse  was  the  composition  of  the  Ministry, 
which  Burke  has  described  in  a  famous  passage 
as  "such  a  tesselated  pavement  without  cement 
— here  a  bit  of  black  stone  and  there  a  bit  of 
white ;  patriots  and  courtiers.  King's  Friends 
and  republicans,  Whigs  and  Tories,  treacherous 
friends  and  open  enemies — that  it  was  indeed  a 
very  curious  show ;  but  utterly  unsafe  to  touch, 
and  unsure  to  stand  on."  2  Pitt  in  his  prime 
might  possibly  have  managed  to  hold  it  together 
through  his  ascendency  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
But  its  last  chance  of  cohesion  vanished  when,  at 
the  very  outset,  he  took  the  momentous  decision 
to  withdraw  to  the  House  of  Lords  with  the 
Earldom  of  Chatham  and  the  post  of  Privy  Seal. 
The  reasons  for  this  step  were  obvious  and  simple. 
With  health  grievously  impaired  and  nerves  so 
shattered  that  the  strain  of  business  became  to 
him  daily  more  intolerable,  he  could  neither  have 
led  the  Commons  nor  taken  over  the  charge  of  a 
laborious  department.  But  to  his  whole  Cabinet, 
from  Northington  to  Camden,  the  tidings  came 
as  a  startling  shock.  They  realised  more  fully 
than  he  himself  did  how  far  his  position  in  the 
country  depended  upon  his  remaining  the  Great 

^  Chatham  Correspondence,  ii.  468,  469. 

*  Speech  on  American  Taxation,  April  19,  1774. 


PEERAGE,  MINISTRY,  RETIREMENT  137 

Commoner,  unique  and  impeccable,  the  chosen 
representative  of  the  people.  Horace  Walpole 
had  predicted  truly  that  the  circumstances  both 
of  the  time  and  of  the  Ministry  would  be  against 
Pitt ;  that  he  wanted  the  thorough  bass  of  drums 
and  trumpets,  and  was  not  made  for  peace. 
These  disadvantages  were  crowned  by  his  accept- 
ance of  a  peerage.  The  people  fell  away  from 
him.  The  countermanding  by  the  City  of  London 
of  the  illuminations  which  had  been  prepared  to 
celebrate  his  return  to  office  was  an  infallible,  if 
somewhat  ludicrous,  sign  of  the  revocation  of 
popular  favour.  His  enemies  compared  him  to 
Pulteney,  and  his  best  friends  felt  that,  however 
unfair  the  parallel,  there  was  an  ominous  similarity 
in  the  attitude  of  the  public  on  the  two  occasions. 

Thus  in  July  1766  stood  Chatham,  to  give  him 
the  title  by  which  he  must  henceforth  be  called, 
and  by  which  he  has  been  generally  known  in 
historj',  in  distinction  from  his  statesman  son. 
Under  such  circumstances,  with  fear  and  fainting 
of  hearts  inside  the  Cabinet  and  the  withdrawal 
of  popular  support  outside,  with  his  own  vigour 
failing  and  the  cloud  darkening  over  his  brain,  he 
could  at  most  only  adumbrate  a  policy.  What 
little  he  could  do  he  did,  and  it  is  interesting  to 
trace  his  activity,  brief  as  it  was,  in  various  fields 
of  statesmanship. 

First  he  turned  to  his  old  and  chosen  sphere  of 


138  CHATHAM 

foreign  affairs.  He  had  been  watching  with 
attention  and  alarm  the  busy  diplomacy  of 
Choiseul,  and  he  now  projected  a  "northern 
system"  to  counterbalance  the  Family  Compact. 
It  was  to  be  a  triple  alliance  of  England,  Prussia, 
and  Russia,  with  provisions  for  taking  in  the 
smaller  Powers  of  north  Europe  if  they  were 
willing  to  join.  Chatham  was  always  fascinated 
by  schemes  of  this  kind,  partly  from  his  natural 
taste  and  ability  for  planning  great  measures  of 
high  policy,  partly  because  he  had  ever  vividly 
present  before  his  eyes  the  menace  of  Bourbon 
aggression.  To  this  menace  he  conceived  a 
northern  alliance  'to  be  the  natural  counterpoise  ; 
it  was,  as  we  have  seen,  one  of  the  chief  items  in 
the  programme  which  he  put  forward  when 
approached  by  Cumberland  in  the  Cabinet  crisis 
of  1765.  The  astute  diplomatist  Hans  Stanley, 
who  had  been  Chatham's  emissary  to  Paris  in 
1761,  was  selected  to  negotiate  at  St.  Petersburg 
and  to  sound  Frederick  upon  his  way.  In  a 
letter  which  he  wrote  to  Chatham  in  August 
Stanley  surveyed  the  chances  of  his  mission. 
Russia,  he  thought,  felt  secure  and  independent 
owing  to  her  distance  from  the  southern  Powers, 
and  there  were  no  indications  that  she  particularly 
wanted  to  bind  herself  to  England.  Pinissia 
desired  a  dual  and  exclusive  alliance  with  Russia. 
The  sole  hope  of  success  lay  in  the  possibility  of 


PEERAGE,  MINISTRY,  RETIREMENT  139 

persuading  Frederick  that  it  would  be  to  his 
interest  to  admit  England  to  the  compact. 
Frederick,  however,  when  he  was  approached, 
proved  recalcitrant.  He  spoke  in  general  terms 
to  Mitchell,  the  British  Ambassador  at  Berlin,  of 
his  distaste  for  complicated  unions  in  time  of 
peace.  "When  the  storm  seems  to  be  rising, 
and  clouds  begin  to  appear,  then,  and  not  till 
then,  is  the  time  of  uniting  together  and  of 
concerting  measures  to  ward  off  the  impending 
danger."  Probably  the  chief  reason  for  his 
refusal  was  that  he  had  neither  forgotten  nor 
forgiven  England's  treatment  of  him  at  the 
Peace  of  Paris.  For  Chatham  he  expressed,  now 
as  always,  great  admiration  and  regard  ;  but  his 
confidence  in  the  continuity  of  British  policy  had 
been  shaken  by  the  short-lived  and  oscillating 
Ministries  that  had  succeeded  each  other  since 
George  iii.  came  to  the  throne.  He  did  not 
believe  in  the  durability  of  Chatham's  influence. 
When  Mitchell  reminded  him  that  his  great  ally 
was  again  in  power  and  would  so  continue, 
Frederick  replied,  "That  does  not  agree  with 
my  accounts  from  England."  ^  Prussia  thus 
proved  impracticable,  and  Russia  was  not  less 
perverse.  As  Stanley  had  predicted,  and 
Chatham  himself  had  foreseen  when  he  said  in 
his    speech   on    the    Peace    that    Russia's    true 

^  Chatham  Correspondence,  iii.  140. 


I40  CHATHAM 

interests  led  her  to  move  "  extrinsically  of  other 
systems/'  she  would  only  consent  to  an  alliance  on 
terms  entangling  to  the  Western  Power.  She 
declared  that  the  treaty  must  embrace  the 
eventuality  of  a  Turkish  war^  and,  as  this  was 
not  a  matter  in  which  England  could  feel  any 
interest,  the  negotiations  dropped  altogether. 

Another  great  question,  closely  touching  those 
Imperial  interests  which  Chatham  held  so  dear, 
was  now  crying  for  settlement.  Since  the 
victories  of  Clive,  Bengal  had  been  devastated 
by  scandalous  misgovernment.  The  English 
power  was  supreme  and  undisputed,  though 
nominally  native  rulers  still  held  sway.  The 
officials  of  the  Company  utilised  this  power  to 
establish  trade  monopolies  and  levy  blackmail ; 
and  while  they  amassed  huge  fortunes  native 
industry  succumbed.  Sometimes  the  people  of 
Bengal,  in  Macaulay's  words,  "  submitted  in 
patient  misery.  Sometimes  they  fled  from  the 
white  man,  as  their  fathers  had  been  used  to 
fly  from  the  Mahratta ;  and  the  palanquin  of 
the  English  traveller  was  often  carried  through 
silent  villages  and  towns,  which  the  report  of  his 
approach  had  made  desolate."  ^  The  results  were 
seen  in  England  in  the  return  of  the  '^nabobs," 
who  had  begun,  as  Chatham  said  in  1770,  to 
buy  themselves  into  Parliament  with  such  a 
^  Essay  on  Clive. 


PEERAGE,  MINISTRY,  RETIREMENT  141 

torrent  of  corruption  as  no  private  hereditary 
fortune  could  resist.  In  1765  Clive  went  back 
to  India  invested  with  great  powers  in  response 
to  a  universal  call.  Confronted  by  the  bitterest 
opposition  from  his  subordinates,  he  organised 
and  carried  through  with  wonderful  firmness 
far-reaching  measures  of  reform  ;  but  when  his 
short  administration  of  eighteen  months  was 
ended  the  Company  failed  to  maintain  his  policy, 
and  the  fundamental  question  of  the  relative 
right  of  the  Crown  and  the  Company  to  the 
sovereignty  of  the  Indian  territories  came  forward 
in  substantial  shape. 

"  I  need  not  tell  you,"  wrote  Chatham  to 
Townshend  in  January  1767,  "how  entirely  this 
transcendent  object,  India,  possesses  my  heart 
and  fixes  my  thoughts."  ^  The  fullest  statement 
of  his  views  on  Indian  policy  is  to  be  found  in 
letters  which  he  wrote  to  Shelbume,  who  himself 
shared  his  opinions,  when  the  question  of  India 
was  revived  in  Parliament  in  1773.  "I  always 
conceived,"  he  said  then,  "that  there  is  in 
substantial  justice  a  mixed  right  to  the  territorial 
revenues  between  the  State  and  the  Company,  as 
joint  captors  ;  the  State  equitably  entitled  to  the 
larger  share,  as  largest  contributor  in  the  acquisi- 
tion by  fleets  and  men,  etc.  Nor  can  the  Com- 
j)any's    share,   when   ascertained,    be    considered 

^  Chatham  Correspondence ,  iii.  153- 


142  CHATHAM 

as  private  property,  but  in  trust  for  the  public 
purposes  of  defence  of  India  and  the  extension  of 
trade,  never  in  any  case  to  be  portioned  out  in 
dividends  to  the  extinction  of  the  spirit  of 
trade."  ^  His  conviction  that  the  ultimate  right 
to,  and  responsibility  for,  the  Indian  territories 
lay  with  the  Crown,  and  that  the  Company 
must  be  regarded  as  essentially  a  trustee,  was 
characteristic  of  a  statesman  who  always  empha- 
sised the  moral  obligations  of  Government.  He 
asserted  it  just  as  emphatically  in  1766-1767  as 
in  1773.  In  November  1766  he  secured  the 
appointment  of  a  Parliamentary  Committee  of 
Inquiry  into  the  affairs  of  the  Company.  But 
illness  prostrated  him  before  he  could  develop 
the  lines  of  his  policy,  and  he  was  not  destined 
himself  to  inaugurate  Indian  reform.  For  his 
attitude  towards  the  schemes  eventually  adopted 
we  must  have  recourse  to  another  of  the  letters 
written  to  Shelbume  in  the  summer  of  1 773,  in 
which  his  statesmanlike  ideas  found  large  and 
liberal  expression.  "  India,"  he  wrote,  "  teems 
with  iniquities  so  rank  as  to  smell  to  earth  and 
heaven.  The  reformation  of  them,  if  pursued  in 
a  pure  spirit  of  justice,  might  exalt  the  nation, 
and  endear  the  English  name  throughout  the 
world.  .  .  .  The  putting  under  circumscription  and 
control  the   high   and  dangerous  prerogative  of 

^  Chatham  Correspondence,  iv.  264. 


PEERAGE,  MINISTRY,  RETIREMENT  143 

war  and  alliances,  so  abused  in  India,  I  cannot 
but  approve.  .  .  .  The  abolition  of  inland  trade  on 
private  account  is  highly  laudable,  as  far  as  that 
provision  goes ;  but  I  would  assuredly  carry  the 
prohibition  further,  and  open  again  to  the  natives 
and  other  Eastern  merchants  the  inland  trade 
of  Bengal,  and  abolish  all  monopolies  on  the 
Company's  account,  which  now  operate  to  the 
unjust  exclusion  of  an  oppressed  people,  and  to 
the  impoverishing  and  alienating  of  those  exten- 
sive and  populous  provinces.  The  hearts  and 
good  affections  of  Bengal  are  of  more  worth  than 
all  the  profits  of  ruinous  and  odious  monopolies."  ^ 
A  suggestion  of  Chatham's  preoccupation  with 
India  at  the  opening  of  his  Ministry  is  given  in 
an  amusing  letter  written  by  Wedderbum  the 
lawyer  to  George  Grenville  in  September  1766. 
Wedderbum  pictures  Chatham  as  surveying  the 
kingdoms  of  the  earth  from  "  the  pinnacle  of 
Hampstead  Hill,"  himself  invisible ;  though  how 
he  intends  to  dispose  of  them  passes  conjecture. 
"  Fame  says,  indeed,  that  he  has  begun  at  one 
extremity  of  the  world,  and  that 

'  Hydaspes,  Indus,  and  the  Ganges, 
Dread  from  his  arm  impending  changes. '"^ 

To   Hampstead  Chatham  had  fled  when  he  was 
forming  his  Ministry  in  the  hot  days  of  July,  and 

^  Chatham  Correspondence,  iv.  276,  277. 
2  Grenville  Papers,  iil.  320. 


144  CHATHAM 

it  is  closely,  if  inauspiciously,  connected  with  this 
epoch  in  his  life. 

From  India,  however,  his  attention  was  speedily 
distracted  by  less  important  but  more  irritating 
and  immediate  concerns.  A  bad  harvest  had 
been  followed  by  extreme  scarcity,  by  rioting  and 
great  distress ;  and  to  secure  the  food  supply,  and 
prevent  a  further  rise  in  prices,  the  Ministry  by 
an  Order  in  Council  laid  an  embargo  on  the 
export  of  com.  Having  exceeded  the  letter  of 
the  law,  they  had  to  apply  to  Parliament  for 
indemnification.  In  the  debates  which  followed, 
Camden,  in  the  House  of  Lords,  let  fall  the 
unlucky  observation  that  the  measure  was  at 
worst  only  a  forty  days'  tyranny,  while  in  the 
House  of  Commons  Chatham's  henchman 
Beckford,  "the  wild  aldei-man"  as  Temple  called 
him,  made  a  mysterious  and  extraordinarily 
injudicious  allusion  to  the  dispensing  power. 
These  indiscretions  furnished  a  telling  oppor- 
tunity of  which  Mansfield  and  Grenville  made 
full  use  in  reply,  and  thus  the  Government  was 
handicapped  from  the  start. 

Still  more  vexatious  to  Chatham  was  the 
miscarriage  of  his  party  diplomacy.  In  the  early 
autumn  of  1766  negotiations  were  opened  with 
the  Bedford  interest  in  the  view  of  strengthening 
the  Ministry.  Chatham,  true  to  his  cherished 
principle,  seems  to  have  thought  it  both  advisable 


PEERAGE,  MINISTRY,  RETIREMENT  145 

and  possible  to  detach  a  single  member  from  that 
well  -  disciplined  connection,  and  he  contented 
himself  with  offering  a  post  to  Lord  Gower. 
This  was  not  enough  for  the  Bedfords,  and  it  was 
declined.  In  October,  however,  Chatham  met 
the  Duke  at  Bath,  and  they  had  frequent  con- 
ferences together.  This  made  an  impression  on 
the  political  world,  but  neither  now  nor  later, 
when  Chatham  returned  to  town,  did  it  issue  in 
an  alliance.  The  final  result  was  indeed  just  the 
opposite,  as  Bedford's  failure  to  obtain  what  he 
wanted  parted  him  decisively  from  Chatham,  and 
linked  him  closely  with  the  other  groups  in 
opposition.  These  circumstances  made  it  abso- 
lutely imperative  that  the  Ministry  should  be  itself 
at  one  and  able  to  show  an  undivided  front  to 
its  foes. 

But  at  this  critical  time  it  was  rent  asunder  by 
a  piece  of  discourtesy  on  the  part  of  Chatham,  for 
which  he  paid  most  dearly.  Wishing  to  dispose 
of  the  Treasurership  of  the  Household  in  another 
quarter,  he  brusquely  invited  Lord  Edgcumbe, 
who  held  it,  to  exchange  it  for  a  Lordship  of 
the  Bedchamber.  Edgcumbe  was  unwilling ;  but 
the  Earl  of  Bessborough,  who  was  at  the  Post 
Office,  to  arrange  the  difficulty  offered  to  take 
the  Lordship  of  the  Bedchamber,  and  to  surrender 
his  own  post  to  Edgcumbe.  Chatham,  however, 
trampled  mercilessly  on  the  feelings  of  these 
10 


146  CHATHAM 

illustrious  Whigs.  He  dismissed  Edgcumbe  and 
summarily  vetoed  Bessborough's  proposal.  With 
Edgcumbe  depari;ed  the  patronage  of  four 
boroughs,  but  there  was  also  a  more  serious 
defection.  The  most  eminent  and  unimpeach- 
ably  Whig  section  of  the  Ministry — the  Duke  of 
Portland,  Lord  Bessborough,  Lord  Scarborough, 
Lord  Monson,  Sir  Charles  Saunders,  Sir  W. 
Meredith,  and  Admiral  Keppel — resigned  in  a 
body.  Conway,  who  was  hardly  to  be  persuaded 
not  to  resign  himself,  wrote  to  Chatham  that  he 
was  ''much  distressed  and  hurt"  by  what  had 
taken  place.^ 

The  only  distinguished  name  among  the 
substitutes  whom  Chatham  found  to  fill  these 
gaps  was  that  of  Sir  Edward  Hawke,  who  took 
the  Admiralty.  The  outlook  of  the  Ministiy 
had  never  been  more  dark.  Chatham  himself 
had  already  given  signs  of  growing  fallibility  of 
judgment,  not  only  in  the  case  of  Edgcumbe,  but 
in  tactics  more  purely  political,  as  when,  for 
example,  he  entrusted  the  motion  for  an  Indian 
inquiry  to  the  windy  Beckford.  Further,  his 
ardent  eloquence  was  chilled  in  the  uncongenial 
atmosphere  of  the  House  of  Lords,  where  the 
Duke  of  Richmond,  confronting  the  great  states- 
man with  a  boldness  that  had  only  been  paralleled 
in  the  House  of  Commons  by  Barre's  celebrated 

'^Chatham  Correspondence,  iii.  iz8. 


PEERAGE,  MINISTRY,  RETIREMENT  147 

attack,  said  he  hoped  the  nobility  would  not  be 
browbeaten  by  an  insolent  Minister.  But  in  the 
Cabinet  Chatham  seems,  as  long  as  he  was  able  to 
be  present  at  its  deliberations,  to  have  preserved 
intact  his  remarkable  ascendency.  The  most 
brilliant  and  most  wayward  of  his  colleagues  was 
Townshend ;  yet  Townshend  confessed  to  Grafton, 
as  they  drove  home  together  after  a  Cabinet 
Council  over  which  Chatham  had  presided,  **  that 
the  Earl  had  just  shown  them  what  inferior 
animals  they  were."  ^ 

The  master  hand  was  now  to  be  withdrawn. 
On  the  rising  of  Parliament  in  December, 
Chatham  had  set  forth  on  that  memorable  visit 
to  Bath  from  which  dates  his  disastrous  eclipse. 
In  January  1767  he  started  to  return  to  London. 
Gout  drove  him  back,  and  he  did  not  leave 
Bath  again  till  the  middle  of  February,  when 
he  got  as  far  on  his  homeward  journey  as  the 
Castle  Inn  at  Marlborough.  There,  in  the  ram- 
bling red -brick  mansion  which  has  now  been 
turned  to  such  different  uses,  but  was  then  chief 
among  posting-houses  on  the  great  Bath  road,  he 
remained,  invisible  and  unapproachable,  till  the 
end  of  the  month.  Astonished  passers-by  found 
inn  and  town  alike  thronged  with  servants  in  his 
livery ;  for,  as  Gilly  Williams  observed  to  Selwyn, 
he  carried  with  him  more  equipage,  household, 

^  Anson's  Grafton^  p.  105. 


148  CHATHAM 

and  retinue  than  most  of  the  old  patriarchs 
used  to  travel  with  in  ancient  days.  At  last  on 
March  2  he  arrived  in  London,  "full  of  gout, 
and  not  able  to  stir  hand  or  foot." 

He  found  the  Ministry  in  a  state  of  demorali- 
sation which  the  despondent  letters  of  his 
colleagues  had  not  exaggerated.  When  his  face 
was  hid  for  a  moment,  Burke  said  finely,  his  whole 
system  was  on  a  wide  sea,  without  chart  or 
compass.  The  Ministers  fell  an  easy  prey  to  the 
most  virile  and  aspiring  personality  among  them, 
Charles  Townshend,  who  was  now  fairly  embarked 
upon  that  course  of  champagne  speeches  which 
has  won  him  his  ill-starred  renown.  Townshend 
had  already  given  signs  of  a  spirit  of  rebellion 
which  no  one  but  Chatham  in  person  could 
repress.  On  the  Indian  question  he  accepted 
the  principle  that  the  Company  had  a  right  to 
territorial  revenue,  in  frank  contradiction  of  the 
views  of  Chatham.  His  carelessness  had  largely 
contributed  to  bring  about  the  grave  defeat  on 
the  land-tax  which  the  Government  had  just 
suffered  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Most  serious 
of  all,  he  had  in  the  army  debate  of  January  26 
let  fall  the  light-hearted  but  fateful  declaration 
that  he  would  find  a  revenue  in  America  nearly, 
if  not  quite,  sufficient  to  make  her  support 
an  establishment  of  her  own.  Chatham,  was 
well  aware  of  his  insubordination.     In  December 


CHARLES  TOWNSHEND 
After  the  portrait  by  Reynolds 


PEERAGE,  MINISTRY,  RETIREMENT  149 

1 766  he  had  written  to  Grafton  that  Townshend's 
fluctuations  and  incurable  weaknesses  could  not 
"  comport  with  his  remaining  in  that  critical 
office."  1  As  soon  as  he  returned  to  London  he 
offered  Townshend's  post,  with  the  King's  leave, 
to  Lord  North,  who  would  not  accept  it.  This 
refusal  would  doubtless  not  have  altered  his 
decision  to  dismiss  Townshend ;  but  fate  forbade 
him  to  achieve  his  purpose.  Before  the  end  of 
the  first  week  in  March  he  became  incapable  of 
all  mental  effort ;  his  long  melancholy  illness 
had  begun. 

From  this  time  until  July  1769  he  remained 
buried  in  seclusion.  The  precise  character  of  his 
strange  malady  has  given  rise  to  abundant 
conjectures.  Of  his  contemporaries  some  pro- 
nounced him  completely  mad,  while  others  were 
of  the  opinion  that  it  was  only  a  consummate 
piece  of  acting  designed  to  relieve  him  of  re- 
sponsibility for  the  failure  of  his  administration. 
The  second  hypothesis  is  wholly  inconsistent 
with  the  character  of  Chatham,  who  /'^ould  never 
have  stooped  to  such  a  subterfuge ;  nor  does  it 
agree  with  the  bulk  of  the  evidence  which  we 
possess.  The  first  hypothesis,  thus  absolutely 
stated,  is  at  least  misleading.  It  would  probably 
be  untrue  to  say — though  this  is  a  point  which 
physicians  and  not  laymen  must  finally  decide — 
^Anson's  Grafton,  p.  no. 


I50  CHATHAM 

that  Chatham  ever  became  actually  insane,  but 
at  the  same  time  it  must  be  admitted  that  his 
behaviour  at  this  time  bore  many  traces  of  an 
unhinged  mind,  and  that,  whether  or  not  his 
reason  positively  left  him,  it  was  no  doubt  most 
seriously  shaken.  His  extravagances  were  never 
more  conspicuous  than  during  the  period  of  his 
life  which  preceded  this  collapse,  and  the  record 
of  them  reads  like  a  chapter  in  the  life  of  some 
barbaric  potentate. 

When  he  settled  at  North  End  in  Hampstead, 
upon  taking  office,  he  began  rapidly  buying  up 
all  the  houses  round  his  own,  "  to  ward  off  the 
noises  of  neighbourhood."  He  had  done  the 
same  thing  at  Hayes,  where  he  also  spent  great 
sums  in  hurrying  on  the  planting  of  his  grounds 
at  night  by  the  light  of  torches.  At  Burton 
Pynsent  he  had  cedars  and  cypresses  brought 
down  from  London  to  cover  a  bleak  hill  which 
bounded  his  view.  In  his  kitchens  might  be 
seen  chickens  boiling  or  roasting  without  inter- 
mission through  the  day ;  so  imcertain  was  his 
appetite,  so  imperative  his  whim  to  gratify  it 
instantaneously  when  he  felt  disposed.  Now  he 
was  filled  with  an  agitated  desire  for  Hayes, 
which  he  had  sold  in  1766  to  Thomas  Walpole. 
Walpole  offered  it  to  him  for  a  month  or  for  the 
whole  summer ;  "  he  would  immediately  remove 
his  family,  who  were  there,  and  Lord  Chatham 


PEERAGE,  MINISTRY,  RETIREMENT  151 

would  find  it  well  aired,"  But  Chatham  would 
be  content  with  nothing  less  than  its  repossession. 
Under  the  combined  pressure  of  Lady  Chatham 
and  Lord  Camden,  Walpole  was  persuaded  to 
yield  it  in  the  course  of  the  autumn  with  a  good 
grace.  The  repurchase  had  been  a  delicate 
matter.  "If  this  sacrifice/'  wrote  Camden, 
"  shall  prove  instrumental  to  the  recovery  of  Lord 
Chatham's  health,  Mr.  Walpole  will  be  well  paid  ; 
and  I  am  afraid  that  nothing  short  of  that  will 
make  him  completely  happy.  It  is  impossible  to 
describe  as  it  deserved  the  pangs  he  felt  at  part- 
ing with  this  favourite  place."  ^ 

Facts  like  these  show  into  what  strange 
latitudes  Chatham's  mind  had  wandered.  A  life 
of  illness  had  told  fatally  upon  his  system  and 
intensified  his  eccentricities.  Now,  when  he 
stood  most  in  need  of  a  reserve  of  strength,  his 
constitution  failed  him.  Probably  the  peculiar 
temperament  which  never  allowed  him  to  unbend, 
helped  to  bring  about  this  result.  He  had  always 
lived  at  full  pressure,  and  sustained  himself,  not 
without  much  self-consciousness  and  ostentation, 
at  a  high  level  of  thought  and  action.  The 
extreme  tension  thus  produced  now  accentuated 
his  morbid  depression,  and  allowed  the  gout  to 
settle  like  a  pall  over  his  disordered  nerves  instead 
of  relieving  him  by  a  sharp  attack  of  physical  pain. 

^  Chatham  Correspondence,  iii.  290. 


152  CHATHAM 

There  is  no  sadder  or  more  impressive  testimony 
to  his  greatness  than  the  series  of  imploring  notes 
which,  while  he  lay  prostrate  at  Hampstead 
through  the  months  of  1767,  poured  in  on  him 
from  George  the  Third,  from  Grafton,  and  from 
Shelburne,  begging  him  to  speak  but  a  word,  to 
grant  but  a  momentaiy  interview,  in  order  to  put 
an  end  to  that  distemper  in  the  political  world 
which  was  as  calamitous  as  his  own.  On  May 
30,  when  dwindling  majorities  in  the  House  of 
Lords  seemed  to  foreshadow  immediate  disaster, 
the  King  made  an  insistent  appeal  to  him  to  see 
Grafton.  "Your  duty  and  affection  for  my 
person,"  he  wrote,  "your  own  honour,  call  on 
you  to  make  an  effort ;  five  minutes'  conversation 
with  you  would  raise  his  spirits,  for  his  heart  is 
good."  Chatham  obeyed,  and  Grafton  went  next 
day  to  Hampstead.  His  account  of  the  inter- 
view gives  a  moving  description  of  Chatham's 
state,  of  "  the  sight  of  his  great  mind  bowed  down, 
and  thus  weakened  by  disorder."  The  whole 
appalling  catalogue  of  Ministerial  woes  was  un- 
folded by  Grafton.  In  reply  Chatham  could  only 
beg  him  to  stay  in  office  himself,  and  to  believe  in 
Shelburne,  whom  he  profoundly  distrusted.^ 

This  momentary  glimpse  was  all  that  was  seen 
of  Chatham  in  politics  for  two  years.  His  prostra- 
tion grew  more  and  more  complete ;  at  the  bare 

^Anson's  Grafton,  pp.  136-138. 


PEERAGE,  MINISTRY,  RETIREMENT  153 

mention  of  a  word  of  business  he  would  tremble 
and  burst  into  tears.  From  time  to  time  he 
entreated  to  be  allowed  to  resign  a  Premiership 
that  had  long  been  merely  titular.  But  it  was 
not  till  October  1768  that  he  ceased  to  be  the 
official  head  of  an  administration  which  had 
travelled  far  from  every  conviction  which  he 
cherished,  and  farthest  of  all  in  the  matter  of 
America.  Within  the  limits  of  a  short  life  of 
Chatham  it  would  be  impossible  and  undesirable 
to  recount  in  detail  the  disastrous  things  which 
were  done  in  his  name, — "  how  Townshend,  usurp- 
ing command  of  the  Government,  madly  reopened 
the  fatal  issue  by  the  imposition  of  a  number  of 
import  duties ;  how  Parliament  gave  a  careless 
assent  to  Townshend' s  proposal ;  how  colonial 
resistance  was  renewed."  ^  For,  keenly  as 
Chatham  strove  afterwards  to  avert  the  con- 
sequences of  these  errors,  at  the  time  they  were 
committed  he  was  politically  dead,  plunged  in  an 
isolation  too  deep  to  be  penetrated  even  by  the 
highest  public  calls  or  claims. 

^  Goldwin  Smith,  United  States,  p.  68. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

CONSTITUTIONAL    STRUGGLES 

Reappearance  of  Chatham — His  altered  policy — Return  of 
Wilkes — The  Middlesex  election^— Chatham  on  the 
Constitutional  question  —  The  Ministry  dissolves  — 
Widespread  agitation  for  reform — Lord  North — Parlia- 
ment and  the  Press — Effect  of  the  struggle  upon 
Chatham — His  declarations  on  Parliamentary  reform — 
Chatham  in  the  House  of  Lords. 

ON  July  7,  1769,  London  was  startled  by 
the  news  that  Chatham  had  been  seen  at 
the  King's  levee  that  morning.  Violent  fits  of 
gout  had  at  last  dispelled  his  brooding  malady, 
and  he  was  indeed  returning  to  a  world  that 
stood  sorely  in  need  of  him.  But  he  was  return- 
ing to  it  an  altered  man.  The  gulf  that  separates 
the  Chatham  of  1769  from  the  Chatham  of  1767 
is  not  merely  the  gulf  of  two  obliterated  years, 
A  change  had  passed  over  his  character,  the 
traces  of  which  are  from  this  time  clearly  visible. 
Since  his  great  War  Ministry  his  life  had  been 
broken    and    unhappy.     This   period    had    been 


CONSTITUTIONAL  STRUGGLES     155 

marked  by  one  great  outpouring  of  his  genius, 
when  he  came  forward  to  oppose  the  taxation  of 
the  colonies ;  but  circumstances  and  his  own 
caprice  had  turned  the  whole  current  of  affairs 
awry.  If  Chatham  had  not  played  for  his  own 
hand  in  the  sense  in  which  most  pohticians  of  his 
age  did  so,  he  cannot  be  acquitted  of  having 
alienated  the  men  who  would  naturally  have 
followed  him,  by  his  dictatorial  pose  and  his 
repellent  and  exasperating  reserve.  At  length  he 
had  returned  to  power,  only  to  succumb  to  a 
disabling  illness ;  but  before  it  crushed  him  he 
was  allowed  for  a  moment  to  see  the  consequences 
to  which  his  impolicy  was  leading.  Now,  when 
his  brain  was  cleared  and  he  was  able  to  survey 
things  round  him  as  they  really  were,  he  saw 
that  nothing  but  the  most  single-hearted  and 
unflagging  service  could  arrest  the  misgovernment 
of  his  country.  His  patriotism,  which  had  never 
really  faltered,  burned  out  the  unworthier  ele- 
ments of  his  character  like  a  consuming  fire,  and 
he  came  back  to  politics  prepared  to  sacrifice 
his  dearest  prejudices  to  the  furtherance  of  the 
common  cause. 

He  discarded  his  old  doctrine  about  the  futility 
of  party.  It  was  this  that  had  prevented  him 
from  coalescing  with  the  Rockinghams  and  had 
placed  him  at  the  mercy  of  the  King.  He  now 
made  it   plain   that,  if  the  Rockinghams  would 


156  CHATHAM 

forgive  and  forgetj  he  would  yield  them  ungrudg- 
ing confidence  and  be  proud  to  fight  under  their 
banner.  ''This  I  am  resolved  upon^"  he  said, 
"  that  I  will  not  even  sit  at  council  but  to  meet 
the  friends  of  Lord  Rockingham.  Whatever 
differences  may  have  been  between  us,  they 
must  be  forgotten ;  the  state  of  the  nation  is 
such  that  all  private  animosities  must  subside. 
He,  and  he  alone,  has  a  knot  of  spotless  friends 
such  as  ought  to  govern  this  kingdom."  In 
another  conversation  which  was  reported  to 
Rockingham  by  the  Duke  of  Portland,  Chatham 
said  that  he  united  body  and  soul  with  Lord 
Rockingham  and  Sir  George  Savile  in  their 
measures,  and  that  he  would  go  hand  in  hand 
with  Lord  Rockingham  and  his  friends,  who 
were,  and  had  proved  themselves  to  be,  the  only 
true  Whigs  in  the  country.  "Former  little 
differences  must  be  forgotten  when  the  contest 
is  pro  arts  et  focis."  ^  It  is  true  that  they  were 
never  quite  forgotten.  The  Rockingham  party 
was  intellectually  inspired  by  Burke,  who  never 
trusted  Chatham,  and  pointed  the  sense  of 
difference  between  them  in  his  great  pamphlet 
on  the  Present  Discontents.  Chatham,  on  the 
other  hand,  found  it  almost  insuperably  difficult 
to  keep  time  with  the  slow  and  sedate  pace 
at   which    the    Rockinghams    moved    along    the 

^  Rockingham  Memoirs,  ii.   142,  143. 


CONSTITUTIONAL  STRUGGLES     157 

path  of  reform.  Now  and  then  his  fiery 
impatience  would  flare  out,  as  when,  in  the 
following  year,  he  complained  that  "  moderation, 
moderation,  was  the  burden  of  their  song,"  and 
that  he  would  have  to  be  "  a  scarecrow  of  violence 
to  the  gentle  warblers  of  the  grove — the  moderate 
Whigs  and  temperate  statesmen."  The  best 
intentions  could  not  efface  this  cleavage  of 
temperament ;  but  Chatham's  generous  sense  of 
duty  enabled  him,  in  spite  of  it,  to  keep  the 
alliance  unbroken  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 

He  never  did  things  by  halves,  and  on  the 
pi'esent  occasion  he  did  not  stop  at  a  rapprochement 
with  the  Rockinghams.  He  reconciled  himself 
also  with  Temple,  and  with  his  other  distinguished 
brother-in-law  George  Grenville,  who  was  now 
on  the  point  of  atoning  for  a  misdirected  career 
by  his  great  speech  against  the  expulsion  of 
Wilkes  and  by  his  invaluable  Election  Act. 
What  was,  in  the  light  of  his  old  obsequiousness, 
more  remarkable  still,  he  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  best  loyalty  was  to  speak  the  unflatter- 
ing truth  to  the  King,  and  in  his  audience  of 
July  he  made  plain  his  disagreement  with  certain 
measures  of  his  Majesty's  Ministers,  and  expressed 
the  hope  that,  if  he  was  found  opposing  their 
policy  in  Parliament,  his  conduct  might  not  be 
put  down  to  pique  or  ambition,  for  office  of  any 
kind  had  ceased  to  be  desirable  to  him. 


158  CHATHAM 

But  George  the  Third  had  not  enough  belief 
in  other  people's  disinterestedness  to  see  that 
Chatham  was  in  earnest,  or  enough  humour  to 
realise  the  ridiculous  unwisdom  of  the  renewed 
campaign  against  Wilkes  on  which  he  had  just 
launched  his  Government.  That  persecuted  man 
of  the  people,  whose  previous  fortunes  have  been 
recounted  in  an  earlier  chapter,  had  gone  to 
Paris  as  soon  as  he  became  convalescent  after  his 
duel  with  Martiu.  There  he  learned  that  he  had 
been  found  guilty  in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench 
of  pubUshing  the  Essay  on  Woman  and  republish- 
ing the  North  Briton ;  and  that,  on  his  failure  to 
come  up  for  sentence,  he  had  been  declared  an 
outlaw.  For  four  years  he  remained  abroad, 
making  a  leisurely  tour  through  Italy,  but 
spending  most  of  his  time  in  Paris,  where  he 
was  immensely  popular.  But  even  the  society 
of  "the  gay,  the  pohte  Athenians,"  as  he  called 
them,  could  not  compensate  him  for  his  exclu- 
sion from  England,  and,  after  a  furtive  visit 
thither  in  1766  and  an  unsuccessful  appeal  to 
Grafton  for  a  pardon,  he  returned  without  any 
pretence  of  concealment,  just  before  the  General 
Election  of  1768,  and  stood  for  the  City  of  London. 
He  was  late  in  the  field  and  was  defeated ; 
but,  imdismayed,  he  immediately  proceeded  to 
offer  himself  as  a  candidate  for  Middlesex.  The 
rector  of  Brentford,  where  the  polling  for  the 


CONSTITUTIONAL  STRUGGLES     159 

county  took  place,  was  Home,  earliest  and  most 
passionate  of  Wilkites,  and  so  ably  did  he 
engineer  his  idol's  electoral  campaign  that 
Wilkes  was  returned  with  ease  at  the  head  of 
the  poll. 

The  long  sequel  to  the  Middlesex  election 
then  began.  At  the  beginning  of  June  1768  the 
outlawry  of  Wilkes  was  reversed  by  Mansfield  on 
a  technical  point  of  law ;  but  the  other  verdicts 
against  him  stiU  hung  over  his  head,  and  ten 
days  later  he  appeared  again  in  court  and  was 
sentenced  upon  these  to  pay  a  fine  of  JBIOOO  and 
to  be  imprisoned  for  twenty-two  calendar  months. 
He  was  fast  becoming  the  object  of  that 
rapturous  popular  devotion  which  led  Franklin 
to  say  that  if  George  the  Third  had  had  a  bad 
private  character,  and  Wilkes  a  good  one,  the 
latter  might  have  turned  his  sovereign  out  of  the 
kingdom.  After  the  Middlesex  election  "45" 
was  chalked  on  every  house  in  London,  the 
whole  city  was  illuminated,  and  the  streets  were 
paraded  by  a  mob.  When  Parliament  met  in 
May,  crowds  shouting  "  Wilkes  and  Liberty  ! " 
surrounded  the  House,  and  in  St.  George's 
Fields  there  was  a  riot,  in  the  course  of  which 
the  troops  fired  and  five  or  six  lives  were  lost. 
Lord  Weymouth,  the  Secretary  of  State,  had 
written  a  letter  to  the  magistrates  before  the 
disturbance,   in  which  he   urged    them  not    to 


ibo  CHATHAM 

shrink  from  employing  the  military.  Wilkes 
obtained  a  copy  and  sent  it  to  the  St.  James's 
Chronicle,  where  it  was  published  in  full,  with  a 
few  violent  words  of  preface  by  Wilkes  himself. 
The  King  and  his  Ministers,  who,  in  spite  of  the 
rising  tide  of  public  feeling,  were  resolved  upon 
the  expulsion  of  Wilkes  from  the  House  of 
Commons,  determined  to  make  this  a  casus  belli, 
and  on  February  3,  1 769,  at  the  motion  of  Lord 
Barrington,  Wilkes  was  expelled  for  his  accu- 
mulated transgressions  of  the  North  Briton,  the 
Essay  on  Woman,  and  the  preface  to  Lord 
Weymouth's  letter.  Middlesex  promptly  re- 
elected him.  The  House  retaliated  by  voting 
him  incapable  of  sitting  in  the  existing  ParUa- 
ment.  He  was  again  unanimously  re-elected, 
and  again  disqualified.  Then  the  Government 
unearthed  a  sufficiently  intrepid  rival  candidate 
in  Colonel  Luttrell,  and  put  him  up  for  the  seat. 
The  result  was  that  at  this,  the  fourth  Middlesex 
election,  Wilkes  obtained  1143  votes  and 
Luttrell  296.  Nothing  daunted,  the  House 
reversed  the  verdict  of  the  constituency  and 
declared  Luttrell  duly  elected  as  its  member. 

This  unblushing  violation  of  electoral  rights 
raised  a  storm  of  indignation  throughout  England. 
The  era  of  great  public  meetings  began,  and 
protests  and  petitions  flowed  in  fi'om  every  part 
of  the  country.     In  the  midst   of  this   ferment 


CONSTITUTIONAL  STRUGGLES     i6i 

Chatham  emerged  from  his  seclusion.  Seldom, 
if  ever,  has  there  been  a  political  reappearance 
more  unlooked  for  and  more  stirring.  Everyone 
who  had  served  under  him,  as  Sir  George 
Trevelyan  aptly  says,  was  as  restless  as  an 
Austerlitz  veteran  who  had  just  heard  of  the 
landing  from  Elba.^  For  in  the  Ministry, 
leavened  though  it  now  was  with  the  Bedfords, 
and  led  in  the  House  of  Commons  by  Lord  North, 
there  were  still  remaining  some  of  Chatham's 
old  adherents.  There  was  the  Prime  Minister, 
Grafton,  whose  ductility,  however,  Chatham 
could  not  bring  himself  to  forgive.  There  was 
Granby,  the  Commander-in-Chief,  and  Camden, 
the  Lord  Chancellor.  They  waited  eagerly  for 
him  to  show  his  hand,  and  he  did  not  keep  them 
long  in  suspense.  When  Parliament  met  for 
the  Session  of  1770  on  January  9,  Chatham, 
rising  immediately  after  the  seconder  of  the 
address  in  the  House  of  Lords  had  sat  down, 
moved  an  amendment  inviting  the  Peers  to 
consider  the  causes  of  the  prevailing  discontent, 
and  "  particularly  the  late  proceedings  of  the 
House  of  Commons  touching  the  incapacity  of 
John  Wilkes,  Esqre.,  expelled  by  that  House, 
to  be  elected  as  a  member  to  serve  in  this 
present  Parliament."  ^ 

^  Early  History  of  Charles  James  Fox,  p.  loQ. 
^  Chatham  Correspondence^  iii.  369,  et  seq. 
II 


i62  CHATHAM 

When  he  had  finished,  Camden  rose  to  follow 
him.     For  some   time,   the   Chancellor  said,  he 
had  beheld  with  silent  indignation  the  arbitrary- 
measures     of     the    Ministry.        He     had    often 
drooped  and  hung  down  his  head  in  Council,  and 
disapproved   by  his    looks  those  steps  which  he 
knew  his  avowed  opposition  could  not   prevent. 
However,  he  would  do  so  no  longer,  but  openly 
and  boldly  speak  his  mind.     As  to  the  incapaci- 
tating  vote,    he   was  of    the    same    opinion    as 
Lord  Chatham.     He    considered   it   as   a    direct 
attack  upon  the  first  principles  of  the  Constitu- 
tion ;  and  if,  in  giving  his  decision    as  a  judge, 
he  was   to    pay  any  regard    to  that  vote,  or  to 
any  other  vote   of  the    House    of  Commons   in 
opposition   to   the  known   and   established   laws 
of  the  land,  he  should   look  upon  himself  as   a 
traitor  to  his  trust.      Never   did  the  magnetism 
of  Chatham  receive  a  more  striking  tribute  than 
this  speech  of  Camden's,  and  never  was  Mansfield, 
his  great  rival  in  the  Lords,  placed    in   a  more 
embarrassing  situation.    The  latter,  whether  from 
sheer  consternation  at  his  position,  or  from  that 
natural  leaning  towards  subtlety  of  thought  and 
statement  which  led  Chatham   to   describe  him 
as  the  genius  of  penetration,  began   his  speech 
by   saying    that   his    personal    views   as    to    the 
legality   of  the   steps   taken   by   the    House  of 
Commons  were  locked  up  in  his  own  breast  and 


STATUE   OF    LORD   MANSFIELD    IN    WESTMINSTER   ABBEY 


CONSTITUTIONAL  STRUGGLES     163 

should  die  with  him.  Then  he  went  on  to  argue 
that,  though  the  House  of  Commons  could  not 
declare  general  principles  of  law,  it  could,  as  a 
judicial  body,  decide  special  cases  concerning  its 
own  composition.  From  such  a  decision  there 
was  no  appeal,  and  there  could  be  no  remedy- 
but  by  a  fresh  Act  of  Parliament. 

This  contention  called  up  Chatham  once  more, 
and  he  delivered  a  reply  which  ranks  among  his 
very  greatest  speeches.  Mansfield  had  practically 
attributed  to  the  House  of  Commons  an  extra- 
legal power  which  would  enable  them  to  defy 
the  wishes  of  the  people  whom  they  represented. 
To  this  Chatham  retorted — ■ 

"The  Constitution  of  this  country  has  been 
openly  invaded  in  fact ;  and  I  have  heard,  with 
horror  and  astonishment,  that  very  invasion 
defended  on  principle.  What  is  this  mysterious 
power,  undefined  by  law,  unknown  to  the 
subject,  which  we  must  not  approach  without 
awe,  nor  speak  of  without  reverence,  which  no 
man  may  question,  and  to  which  all  men  must 
submit?  My  lords,  I  thought  the  slavish 
doctinne  of  passive  obedience  had  long  since 
been  exploded ;  and  when  our  kings  were 
obliged  to  confess  that  their  title  to  the  Crown, 
and  the  rule  of  their  government,  had  no  other 
foundation  than  the  known  laws  of  the  land,  I 
never  expected  to  hear  a  divine  right  or  a  divine 


i64  CHATHAM 

infallibility  attributed  to  any  other  branch  of  the 
Legislature." 

If,  said  Chatham,  Mansfield's  doctrine  were 
admitted,  we  had  only  exchanged  the  arbitrary 
power  of  a  king  for  the  arbitrary  power  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  "  But,  my  lords,  this  is  not 
the  fact,  this  is  not  the  Constitution ;  we  have  a 
law  of  Parliament,  we  have  a  Code  in  which  every 
honest  man  may  find  it.  We  have  a  Magna 
Charta,  we  have  the  Statute  Book,  and  the  Bill 
of  Rights."  It  was  the  duty  of  the  House  of 
Lords  to  redress  the  balance  of  the  constitutional 
machine  in  view  of  this  usurpation  on  the  pai't 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  Chatham  con- 
cluded with  a  splendid  strain  of  rhetoric  in  which 
he  appealed  to  his  fellow-Peers  : — 

"  My  lords,  I  have  better  hopes  of  the 
Constitution,  and  a  firmer  confidence  in  the 
wisdom  and  constitutional  authority  of  this 
House.  It  is  your  ancestors,  my  lords — it  is  to 
the  English  barons  that  we  are  indebted  for  the 
laws  and  Constitution  we  possess.  Their  virtues 
were  rude  and  uncultivated,  but  they  were  great 
and  sincere.  Their  understandings  were  as 
little  polished  as  their  manners,  but  they  had 
hearts  to  distinguish  truth  from  falsehood ;  they 
understood  the  rights  of  humanity,  and  they  had 
spirit  to  maintain  them.  .  .  .  Let  us  not,  then, 
degenerate   from   the    glorious   example   of  our 


CONSTITUTIONAL  STRUGGLES     165 

ancestors.  Those  iron  barons  (for  so  I  may  call 
them  when  compared  with  the  silken  barons  of 
modem  days)  were  the  guardians  of  the  people  ; 
yet  their  virtues^  my  lords,  were  never  engaged 
in  a  question  of  such  importance  as  the  present. 
A  breach  has  been  made  in  the  Constitution, 
the  battlements  are  dismantled,  the  citadel  is 
open  to  the  first  invader,  the  walls  totter,  the 
Constitution  is  not  tenable.  What  remains,  then, 
but  for  us  to  stand  foremost  in  the  breach,  to 
repair  it  or  perish  in  it  ? " 

The  immediate  result  of  Chatham's  speech 
was  the  dismissal  of  Camden  and  the  resignation 
of  Granby,  who,  after  declaring  in  the  House  of 
Commons  that  he  would  always  lament  his  vote 
for  the  incapacitation  of  Wilkes  as  the  greatest 
misfortune  of  his  life,  gave  up  the  command  of 
the  ai-my  and  the  Mastership  of  the  Ordnance, 
making,  as  Chatham  said,  "  the  name  of  Granby 
as  revered  by  the  friends  of  the  Constitution  as 
it  is  honoured  and  feared  by  the  nation's  enemies 
in  the  field."  ^  Before  the  end  of  January  a  still 
greater  sensation  was  caused  by  the  retirement  of 
Grafton.  Chatham's  return  had  not  awakened 
in  him  the  feelings  of  penitence  which  it  stirred 
in  Camden  and  Granby,  for  from  his  old  leader 
he  had  now  parted  for  ever ;  but  he  was  bitterly 
dissatisfied  with  a  Premiership  which  had  made 

^  Chatham  Correspondence,  iii.  392. 


i66  CHATHAM 

him  irretrievably  unpopular,  and  clouded  almost 
at  its  dawn  the  promise  of  his  early  day. 

It  says  much  for  the  perseverance  of  George 
the  Third,  and  more  for  his  extraordinary  success 
in  corrupting  the  House  of  Commons,  that,  with 
all  the  integrity  and  most  of  the  ability  in  the 
country  against  him,  and  in  the  face  of  an 
exasperated  people,  he  still  contrived  that  his 
party  should  hold  the  field.  As  the  year  1770 
went  on,  the  task  of  maintaining  his  regime  might 
well  have  seemed  hopeless  to  a  weaker  man. 
The  spirit  of  reform  was  astir,  and  that  in  un- 
expected quarters.  In  Februaiy  Grenville  intro- 
duced the  Bill  which  at  last  put  an  end  to  the 
crying  scandal  of  deciding  disputed  elections  by 
a  party  vote  of  the  House  of  Commons.  A 
motion  to  inquire  into  the  expenditure  of  the 
Civil  List  followed,  and,  though  it  failed,  the 
indignation  that  lay  behind  it  was  not  stifled. 
The  Livery  of  London,  headed  by  Beckford, 
presented  to  the  King  a  remonstrance  of 
astonishing  outspokenness,  in  which  they  told 
their  sovereign  to  his  face  that  Parliament  was 
coiTuptly  subservient  to  his  Majesty's  Ministers, 
and  that  those  Ministers  and  their  majority 
between  them  had  engaged  in  more  ruinous 
proceedings  than  those  in  which  Charles  the 
First  or  James  the  Second  ever  indulged.  In 
the   House   of  Lords   Chatham  thundered   con- 


CONSTITUTIONAL  STRUGGLES     167 

tinually  on  the  subject  of  the  Middlesex  elec- 
tion, frankly  declaring  it  to  be  the  alarm  bell 
to  liberty,  which  he  meant  to  ring  incessantly  in 
the  ear  of  the  kingdom.  Junius,  who  was  now 
at  the  height  of  his  power  and  popularity,  had, 
a  few  months  before,  discarding  dukes  and 
Ministers,  indited  his  famous  letter  to  the  King. 

That  the  general  upheaval,  which  seemed  so 
imminent,  after  all  did  not  come,  was  due  very 
largely  to  the  two  following  circumstances.  In  the 
first  place,  George  the  Third  secured  a  successor  to 
Grafton  in  the  Premiership  who  proved  himself  a 
perfectly  invaluable  servant  for  the  purpose  which 
his  Majesty  required.  Lord  North  looked,  to  use 
the  irresistibly  comic  phrase  of  Horace  Walpole, 
like  a  blind  trumpeter.  But  his  passivity  of  eon- 
science,  his  unruffled  temper,  his  unfailing  tact, 
and  his  debating  skill,  qualified  him  only  too 
successfully  to  be  the  effective  mouthpiece  of  a 
bad  cause  and  a  misguided  King. 

The  second  circumstance  which  prevented  a 
convulsion  was,  that  Wilkes,  with  an  admirable 
persistence,  prompted  equally  by  his  strong 
common-sense  and  his  equally  strong  desire  for  his 
personal  comfort,  steadily  declined  to  play  the 
part  of  a  republican  hero.  His  subsequent  career 
must  be  very  briefly  told.  It  is  enough  to  say 
that  his  only  ambitions  were  the  acknowledg- 
ment of  his  violated  Parliamentary  rights,  and  as 


i68  CHATHAM 

much  luxurious  leisure  as  he  could  obtain  in 
compensation  for  his  past  vexations.^  He  satisfied 
the  first  substantially  in  1 774,  when  Luttrell  retired 
and  he  himself  returned  to  Parliament,  and  in  all 
due  form  in  1782,  when  the  record  of  all  the 
arbitrary  proceedings  against  him  was  expunged 
from  the  journals  of  the  House.  He  enjoyed  a 
monopoly  of  popular  admiration  almost  more  com- 
plete than  even  Chatham  had  ever  possessed,  and 
after  serving  as  Lord  Mayor  he  at  length  secured 
the  congenial  place  of  Chamberlain  of  London. 

Wilkism  had  not  subsided,  before  a  second 
struggle  between  Parliament  and  the  people 
began.  This  centred  round  the  question  of 
Parliamentaiy  reporting.  In  March  1771,  at  the 
instigation  of  Colonel  Onslow,  who  had  been 
unceremoniously  handled  in  the  papers,  the  House 
of  Commons  began  an  incautious  campaign  against 
the  Press,  which"  ended  in  flagrant  illegality.  In 
the  course  of  it  a  messenger  of  the  House  of 
Commons  attempted  to  take  one  of  the  incrimin- 
ated printers,  named  Miller,  into  custody.  Miller 
at  once  summoned  a  constable  and  gave  the 
messenger  himself  in  charge.  Miller  and  the 
messenger  were  then  both  brought  up  at  the 
Mansion  House  before  Lord  Mayor  Crosby,  Alder- 
man Wilkes,  and  Alderman  Oliver.  Thither  came 
also  .the  deputy  Serjeant-at-Arms  from  West- 
^  Trevelyan's  Early  History  of  Fox,  p.  254. 


JOHN   WILKES 
From  the  portrait  by  E.  Pine  in  the  Guildhall 


CONSTITUTIONAL  STRUGGLES     169 

minster  to  claim  his  missing  victim.  The  Lord 
Mayor  asked  the  messenger  whether  his  warrant 
for  arresting  Miller  was  backed  by  a  city  magis- 
trate, and  on  receiving  a  denial  committed  him 
for  trial.  War  was  thus  declared  between  the 
privilege  of  Parliament  and  the  charters  of  the 
City.  The  House  of  Commons  summoned  Crosby 
and  Oliver,  who  were  both  members,  to  attend 
in  their  places,  and  Wilkes  to  present  himself  at 
the  bar.  Wilkes,  whose  tactical  skill  may  be 
traced  as  inspiring  the  defence  of  the  City 
throughout  the  whole  proceeding,  refused  to 
appear  anywhere  but  in  his  place  as  member  for 
Middlesex  ;  and  Parliament  shrank  from  a  second 
conflict  with  the  redoubted  Alderman.  Crosby 
and  Oliver,  however,  came,  and  were  committed 
to  the  Tower ;  and,  not  content  with  this,  the 
House  took  the  extraordinary  step  of  forcing  the 
Lord  Mayor's  Clerk  to  attend  and  to  strike  out 
from  his  books  the  recognisance  binding  their 
messenger  to  come  up  for  trial.  But  the  final 
result  was  a  victory  all  along  the  line  for  the 
freedom  of  the  Press  and  of  Parliamentary 
reporting,  as  the  printers  were  left  at  liberty, 
and  Wilkes  was  unmolested,  while  Crosby  and 
Oliver,  both  during  their  short  confinement  and 
on  their  release  at  the  prorogation,  were  the 
objects  of  enthusiastic  demonstrations  of  popular 
sympathy. 


I70  CHATHAM 

Chatham  was  quite  prepared  to  admit  with 
regard  to  this  matter  that  the  Lord  Mayor  laid 
himself  open  to  censure  by  contravening  the 
established  jurisdiction  of  the  House  of  Commons 
in  his  commitment  of  the  messenger ;  but  he 
also  saw  plainly  the  unwisdom  of  the  course  of 
action  which  was  taken  by  Parliament.  In  a 
letter  to  Ban*e  on  March  21  he  wrote :  "  These 
wretches  called  Ministers  will  be  sick  enough  of 
their  folly  (not  forgetting  iniquity)  before  the 
whole  business  is  over.  If  I  mistake  not,  it  will 
prove  very  pregnant,  and  one  distress  generate 
another;  for  they  have  brought  themselves  and 
their  master  where  ordinary  inability  never  arrives, 
and  nothing  but  first-rate  genius  in  incapacity  can 
reach  ;  I  mean,  a  situation  wherein  there  is  noth- 
ing they  can  do  which  is  not  a  fault.  They  have 
wantonly  called  up  a  conflict  of  high  and  sacred 
jurisdiction ;  neither  can  relinquish  their  right ; 
one  may  err  (and  I  continue  to  be  clear  that  Lord 
Mayor  errs),  but  his  error,  taking  it  to  be  sincere 
and  conscientious,  cannot  be  criminal  or  punish- 
able." 1 

The  contest  with  the  printers  seems  finally  to 
have  convinced  Chatham  of  the  hopeless  character 
of  the  existing  Parliament  and  the  necessity  for 
drastic  and  immediate  action.  On  May  1  he 
brought  forward  in  the  House  of  Lords  a  motion 

^  Chatham  Correspondence,  iv.  1 19. 


CONSTITUTIONAL  STRUGGLES     171 

for  a  dissolution,  and  in  a  few  telling  sentences 
surveyed  the  struggle  which  had  just  been  raging. 
The  Commons^  he  said,  not  satisfied  with  shutting 
their  doors,  would  overturn  the  liberty  of  the 
Press.  The  printers  had  spirit,  and  resisted.  The 
magistrates  of  London  undertook  their  defence, 
but  the  Commons  proceeded  with  outrageous 
violence.  "These  men,  who  had  allowed  the 
prostituted  electors  of  Shoreham  counsel  to  defend 
a  bargain  to  sell  their  borough  by  auction,  would 
not  grant  the  same  indulgence  to  the  Lord  Mayor 
of  London,  pleading  for  the  laws  of  England  and 
the  conscientious  discharge  of  his  duty."  And  the 
expunging  of  the  messenger's  recognisance  was, 
he  said,  "  the  act  of  a  mob,  and  not  of  a  Parlia- 
ment." 

At  the  same  time  he  made  a  most  important 
declaration  on  the  subject  of  Parliamentary 
reform.  Calling  for  a  dissolution  in  the  closing 
passages  of  his  speech,  he  wound  up  as 
follows :  "  Not  that  I  imagine  this  act  alone 
sufficient.  .  .  .  The  influence  of  the  Crown  is 
become  so  enormous  that  some  stronger  bulwark 
must  be  erected  for  the  defence  of  the  Constitu- 
tion. The  Act  for  constituting  septennial  Parlia- 
ments must  be  repealed.  Formerly  the  incon- 
venience attending  short  Parliaments  had  great 
weight  with  me  ;  but  now  we  are  not  debating  upon 
a  question  of  convenience  ;  our  all  is  at  stake  ;  our 


172  CHATHAM 

whole  Constitution  is  giving  way ;  and,  therefore, 
with  the  most  deliberate  and  solemn  conviction, 
I  declare  myself  a  convert  to  triennial  Parlia- 
ments." 1 

This  deliverance  shows  how  the  impression 
-Hiade  upon  Chatham  by  the  lawless  proceedings 
of  the  House  of  Commons  majority,  acting  under 
the  direction  of  the  King,  had  gradually  deepened. 
But  its  full  significance  can  only  be  measured  by 
setting  it  side  by  side  with  his  previous  pronounce- 
ments on  the  question.  In  June  1770,  when  a 
deputation  from  the  City  of  London  waited  on 
him  with  a  resolution  of  the  Common  Council 
thanking  him  for  his  efforts  in  furtherance  of 
Parliamentary  reform,  he  said :  "  With  all  my 
deference  to  the  sentiments  of  the  City,  I  am 
bound  to  declare  that  I  cannot  recommend 
triennial  Parliaments  as  a  remedy  against  that 
canker  in  the  Constitution,  venality  in  elections  ; 
ready  to  submit  my  opinion  to  better  judgment, 
if  the  wish  for  that  measure  shall  become  pre- 
valent in  the  kingdom."  ^  And  even  in  April 
1771  he  had  written  to  Shelbume :  "As  to 
shortening  the  duration  of  Parliaments,  I  find  a 
real  dislike  to  the  measure,  in  minds  very  sound 
about  other  public  matters.  The  dread  of  the 
more   frequent    returns   of  corruption,    together 

^  Chatham  Correspondence,  iv.  1 72,  1 73. 
2  Ibid.  iii.  464,  465. 


CONSTITUTIONAL  STRUGGLES     173 

with  every  dissoluteness  which  elections  spread 
through  the  country,  strongly  indisposes  families 
of  all  descriptions  to  such  an  alteration."  ^ 

His  palinode  was  made  under  pressure  of 
necessity,  but  there  is  not  the  smallest  reason  to 
doubt  that  it  was  sincere.  He  approached  the 
subject  with  an  open  mind ;  and  if  reflection  led 
him  in  the  direction  of  democracy,  he  would  not 
draw  back.  It  was  by  his  conversion  to  triennial 
Parliaments  that  he  drew  nearest  to  nascent 
Radicalism  and  recoiled  farthest  from  Burke  and 
the  Whigs. 

But  this  particular  remedy  did  not  exhaust 
Chatham's  ideas  about  reform.  Shortly  after  his 
return  to  politics,  on  January  22,  1770,  he  had 
traversed  the  whole  question  in  a  memorable 
speech  in  the  House  of  Lords.  Corruption  had 
been  increased  tenfold  by  the  appearance  of  the 
Indian  nabobs  on  the  scene,  and  Chatham  took 
their  electioneering  excesses  as  the  text  for  his 
remarks.  "  The  riches  of  Asia,"  he  said,  "  have 
been  poured  in  upon  us,  and  have  brought  with 
them  not  only  Asiatic  luxury,  but,  I  fear,  Asiatic 
principles  of  government.  Without  connections, 
without  any  natural  interest  in  the  soil,  the 
importers  of  foreign  gold  have  forced  their  way 
into  Parliament  by  such  a  torrent  of  private 
corruption  as  no  private  hereditary  fortune  could 

^  Chatham  Corretpondence ,  iv.  157. 


174  CHATHAM 

resist.  For  this  great  evil  some  immediate 
remedy  must  be  provided."  Chatham  recognised 
the  iniquity  of  the  small  pocket  boroughs,  which 
he  called  the  rotten  parts  of  the  Constitution,  but 
he  did  not  consider  their  extinction  a  practicable 
measure  of  reform,  "The  limb/'  he  said,  "is 
mortified,  but  the  amputation  might  be  death." 
He  looked  to  the  cities  and  counties  for  salvation, 
and  he  proposed  to  counteract  existing  evils  by 
giving  an  additional  member  to  each  county. 
The  ruling  idea  of  the  Constitution,  according  to 
Chatham,  was  that  there  should  be  "  a  permanent 
relation  between  the  constituent  and  representa- 
tive body  of  the  people."  An  increase  of  county 
members,  as  representing  the  soil,  would,  he  con- 
sidered, best  meet  the  need  for  more  public  spirit 
in  the  House  of  Commons.^  As  he  himself  said 
later  in  the  year :  "  Purity  of  Parliament  is  the 
cornerstone  in  the  Commonwealth,  and,  as  one 
obvious  means  towards  this  necessary  end  is  to 
strengthen  and  extend  the  natural  relation  be- 
tween the  constituents  and  the  elected,  I  have, 
in  this  view,  publicly  expressed  my  earnest  wishes 
for  a  more  full  and  equal  representation,  by  the 
addition  of  one  knight  of  the  shire  in  a  county, 
as  a  farther  balance  to  the  mercenary  boroughs."  ^ 

^  Chatham  Correspondence^  iii.  406,  4°7' 

2  To   the   City   of    London   Deputation,    Chatham    Corre. 
ipondenee,  iii.  465. 


CONSTITUTIONAL  STRUGGLES     175 

It  is  easy  to  point  out  the  inadequacies  in  this 
scheme,  the  most  obvious  of  them  being  that  it 
made  no  provision  for  the  representation  of  those 
cities  which  were  the  growing  centres  of  industry 
and  intelligence.  But  it  was  at  all  events  a  con- 
tribution. Courageously  taking  up  the  question  in 
the  face  of  difficulties  which  made  success  well- 
nigh  impossible,  he  laid  it  seriously  before  Parlia- 
ment, and  lent  the  weight  of  his  great  name  to  a 
cause  which  was  founded  in  justice  and  destined 
to  eventual  triumph,  immature  as  in  his  day  it 
was. 

Since  the  renewal  of  Chatham's  activity  our 
eyes  have  been  fixed  on  domestic  affairs.  The 
course  of  British  colonial  policy  will  be  considered 
in  the  foUoAving  chapter ;  British  foreign  policy 
was  practically  in  abeyance.  In  1770  Spain  made 
a  descent  upon  the  Falkland  Islands,  which  had 
been  in  British  occupation  for  four  years,  and 
captured  and  evicted  the  little  garrison.  The 
possibility  of  hostilities  with  his  ancient  enemy 
aroused  the  keenest  interest  in  Chatham,  who  did 
his  best  to  stimulate  the  Government  to  energetic 
measures.  Its  inertia  in  the  sphere  of  foreign 
politics  was  almost  as  depressing  to  him  as  its 
crusade  on  behalf  of  privilege  and  prerogative 
at  home.  "England  at  this  day,"  he  wrote,  "is 
no  more  like  to  old  England,  or  England  forty 
years  ago,  than  the  monsignori  of  modem  Rome 


176  CHATHAM 

are  like  to  the  Decii,  the  Gracchi,  or  the  Catos."  ^ 
Further,  his  activities  had  to  be  confined  to  a 
peculiarly  lethargic  House  of  Lords,  in  which  the 
labours  of  opposition,  he  complained,  were  like 
the  labours  of  Hercules.  ''We  are  reduced  to 
a  very  snug  party  of  unhearing  and  unfeeling 
lords,  and  the  tapestry  hangings,^  which  last, 
mute  as  Ministers,  still  tell  us  more  than  all  the 
Cabinet  on  the  subject  of  Spain,  and  the  manner 
of  treating  with  an  insidious  and  haughty  Power." 
In  spite  of  these  disadvantages,  he  delivered 
on  November  22,  1770,  a  forcible  and  note- 
worthy speech  on  the  question  at  issue.  ^  Its  tone 
was  incisive,  and  even  bellicose ;  but  Chatham 
was  well  advised  in  thinking  that  no  language 
could  be  too  strong  if  it  only  brought  home  to 
Ministers  the  paramount  necessity  of  vigilance 
and  preparation  in  face  of  the  sleepless  activity 
of  France  and  Spain.  He  laid  down  with  great 
lucidity,  and  with  an  authority  to  which  no  other 
English  statesman  could  lay  claim,  the  primal 
requirements  of  our  naval  policy.  The  lapse  of 
a  hundred  and  thirty  years  since  he  spoke  has 
profoundly  modified  the  situation,  but  there  is  a 
familiar  echo  in  the  observation  that  England 
must  maintain  such  a  sufficient  naval  force  that 

^  Chatham  Correspondence,  iv.  83. 

-  The  tapestry  depicting  the  defeat  of  the  Armada. 

'  Chatham  Correspondence,  iv,  4,  et  seq. 


CONSTITUTIONAL  STRUGGLES     177 

even  the  combined  fleets  of  her  two  most  likely  foes 
might  never  be  masters  of  the  Channel.  Probably, 
however,  the  passages  of  the  speech  which  are 
read  with  most  interest  to-day  are  those  in  which, 
with  impressive  iteration,  Chatham  turned  to  praise 
famous  men.  There  is  the  curious  and  remark- 
able eulogy  of  Cromwell,  who  "did  not  derive 
his  intelligence  from  spies  in  the  Cabinet  of  every 
prince  in  Europe  ;  he  drew  it  from  the  cabinet 
of  his  own  sagacious  mind.  He  observed  facts, 
and  traced  them  forward  to  their  consequences. 
From  what  was,  he  concluded  what  must  be, 
and  he  never  was  deceived."  There  is  the  en- 
dorsement, memorable  as  coming  from  the  lips 
of  his  antagonist,  of  the  statesmanship  of  Carteret, 
whose  abilities  "did  honour  to  this  House  and 
to  this  nation ;  in  the  upper  departments  of 
government  he  had  not  his  equal,"  And  there 
is  the  generous  tribute  to  Anson,  to  whose 
"wisdom,  experience,  and  care  (and  I  speak  it 
with  pleasure),  the  nation  owes  the  glorious  naval 
successes  of  the  last  war." 


12 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE    BREACH    WITH    AMERICA 

American  policy  under  Townshend  and  North — ^The  tea 
duty — Benjamin  Franklin — The  Boston  Tea-party — 
Coercion  of  Boston — America  rallies  to  her  side — The 
Philadelphia  Congress — Chatham's  approbation  of  the 
Congress — He  speaks  against  coercion — Introduces  a 
Bill  to  solve  the  problem — Succumbs  to  illness — The 
policy  of  France — Chatham  returns  to  politics — Speech 
on  the  employment  of  Indians — France  joins  America — 
Critical  position  of  England — The  King  refuses  to 
summon  Chatham — Chatham's  last  speech  in  the  House 
of  Lords — His  death — Burial  in  Westminster  Abbey. 

THE  closing  scene  of  Chatham's  life  has 
imprinted  itself  deeply  on  the  national 
imagination.  While  the  early  part  of  his  political 
career  is  forgotten,  and  many  of  its  middle  and 
later  phases  very  dimly  remembered,  his  cham- 
pionship of  the  cause  of  America  is  hardly  less 
familiar  than  the  most  brilliant  passages  of  his 
War  Ministry.  It  is  still  possible  to  maintain, 
and  to  maintain  with  reason,  that  if,  even  at  the 
eleventh  hour,  he  could  have  returned  to  office 

178 


THE  BREACH  WITH  AMERICA     179 

with  a  free  hand,  separation  might  have  been 
averted,  or  at  least  long  postponed.  But  that  is 
one  of  the  unvouchsafed  opportunities  of  history. 
The  task  actually  set  him  was  Sisyphean ;  for, 
with  the  burden  of  age  and  infirmity  upon  him, 
he  had  to  contend  against  the  ignorance  of  the 
British  governing  class,  a  venal  Parliament,  and 
the  blind  rancour  of  the  King. 

The  extraordinary  pettiness  of  British  colonial 
policy  during  this  critical  epoch  almost  passes 
comprehension.  Fever  had  smitten  down  Charles 
Townshend  before  the  year  in  which  he  carried 
his  Budget  had  run  out,  but  his  American  policy 
remained  behind  him  in  the  shape  of  the  im- 
portation duties  which  he  had  imposed.  Would 
Parliament  have  the  sagacity  or  the  moral  courage 
to  repeal  them?  In  March  1770  Lord  North 
introduced  a  measure  in  the  House  of  Commons 
repealing  all  the  duties  except  that  upon  tea — 
a  duty,  be  it  observed,  which  brought  scarcely 
£300  into  the  Treasury.  Grafton  had,  to  his 
honour,  striven  for  unqualified  repeal ;  but  the 
King,  and  the  Bedfords,  who  were  strongly  anti- 
American,  won  the  day,  and  the  tea  duty  was 
retained.  Its  retention  was  meant  to  keep  alive 
the  principle  of  the  Declaratory  Act,  and  it  was 
so  far  successful  in  its  object  that  the  Americans 
saw  in  it  the  menace  of  other  measures  of  the 
kind  and   the  fruitful  parent   of  discord,  and  it 


i8o  CHATHAM 

did  eventually  prove  the  efficient  cause  of  war. 
Yet,  half-hearted  as  was  the  nature  of  the  con- 
cessions thus  made,  the  attitude  of  the  colonists 
immediately  changed  for  the  better.  Though 
tea  was  still  boycotted,  the  non-importation 
agreements  in  the  case  of  other  articles  were 
dropped,  and  the  reviving  effect  upon  British 
commerce  was  felt  at  once.  In  spite  of  the 
perennial  irritation  caused  in  America  by  the 
presence  of  British  troops  at  Boston,  in  spite  of 
ebullitions  of  the  smuggling  spirit  like  the 
burning  of  the  ship  Gaspee  in  1772,  in  spite  of 
the  significant  formation  of  committees  of 
grievances,  colonial  turbulence  was  stilled  from 
this  time  to  1773. 

In  that  year  events  began  once  more  to  move 
fast  towards  their  fatal  conclusion.  Benjamin 
Franklin  had  been  for  long  colonial  agent  and 
virtually  ambassador  in  England,  the  chosen 
representative  of  the  colonies  abroad,  the  father 
of  American  letters  and  of  science.  He  now 
committed  that  fatal  error  of  making  public  the 
Hutchinson  letters  which  has  been  well  described 
as  his  social  catasti-ophe.  The  brutal  and  blasting 
invective  of  Wedderbum,  delivered  before  thirty- 
five  amused  and  applauding  Privy  Councillors 
and  in  the  presence  of  Franklin  himself,  set  an 
indelible  seal  on  the  transaction,  deeply  wounded 
Franklin,  and   exasperated   the   Americans,  who 


THE  BREACH  WITH  AMERICA     i8i 

felt   themselves    stricken  in    the    public    insult 
offered  to  their  great  fellow-countryman. 

More  momentous  still  and  more  irretrievable 
were  the  outburst  of  violence  at  Boston  and 
the  coercive  measures  which  it  provoked.  This 
would  never  have  occurred  but  for  the  existence 
of  the  tea  duty ;  its  occasion  was  as  follows : — 
Lying  in  the  warehouses  of  the  East  India 
Company  was  an  immense  quantity  of  tea,  for 
which,  if  only  the  Government  could  be  persuaded 
to  repeal  the  duty,  America  formed  an  obvious 
and  extensive  market.  No  course  more  politic 
or  more  lucrative  to  all  parties  concerned  than 
the  repeal  of  the  tea  duty  could  have  been 
adopted  at  this  moment.  But  with  blind  per- 
sistence the  Government  retained  the  import 
duty  payable  in  America,  while  remitting  to  the 
Company  the  duty  on  exportation  previously 
paid  in  England.  As  the  exportation  duty  was 
a  shilling  on  the  pound,  while  the  import  duty 
was  only  threepence,  the  result  of  the  step 
was  to  make  tea  exceptionally  cheap  for  the 
Americans.  But  there  was  a  principle  at  stake. 
As  Burke  said,  with  admirable  conciseness,  in  his 
speech  on  American  Taxation  :  "  No  man  ever 
doubted  that  the  commodity  of  tea  could  bear 
an  imposition  of  threepence.  But  no  commodity 
will  bear  threepence,  or  will  bear  a  penny,  when 
the  general   feelings   of  men  are  irritated,  and 


i82  CHATHAM 

two  millions  of  people  are  resolved  not  to  pay.  The 
feelings  of  the  colonies  were  formerly  the  feelings  of 
Great  Britain.  Theirs  were  formerly  the  feelings 
of  Mr.  Hampden  when  called  upon  for  the  payment 
of  twenty  shillings.  Would  twenty  shillings  have 
ruined  Mr.  Hampden's  fortune .''  No !  but  the  pay- 
ment of  half  twenty  shillings,  on  the  principle  it 
was  demanded,  would  have  made  him  a  slave." 

At  the  end  of  1773  the  fleet  of  tea-ships  ap- 
peared upon  the  American  coast,  where  it  was 
awaited  as  if  it  had  been  a  second  Armada.  The 
cargoes  for  New  York  and  Philadelphia  were  never 
landed.  The  cargo  for  Charleston  was  stored  up 
in  cellars,  where  it  rotted  away.  The  Boston 
cargo  was  flung  I  into  the  sea  by  a  body  of 
colonists  disguised  as  Mohawk  Indians,  who  had 
boarded  the  ships  in  which  it  lay. 

England  had  been  congratulating  herself  on 
her  moderation  in  repealing  all  the  obnoxious 
duties  but  one,  and  the  news  of  the  outrage  at 
Boston  came  to  her  with  a  startling  shock.  The 
British  people  did  not  stop  to  consider  minutely 
the  course  of  provocation  which  had  led  up  to  it, 
and  they  gave  their  moral  support  to  the  policy 
of  the  King  and  his  Ministers.  That  policy  was 
one  of  undisguised  coercion,  and  it  was  directed 
entirely  upon  the  head  of  Massachusetts,  the 
other  American  communities  implicated  in  re- 
sistance to  the  duty  being  deliberately  ignored. 


THE  BREACH  WITH  AMERICA     183 

One  measure  closed  the  port  of  Boston,  and 
transferred  its  Custom  House  to  Salem.  Another 
provided  that  the  Council  of  Massachusetts  should 
be  nominated  by  the  Crown,  restricted  the  right 
of  public  meeting,  and  placed  the  appointment 
and  tenure  of  all  judges  and  magistrates  in  the 
hands  of  the  Governor.  A  third  empowered  the 
Governor  to  send  any  person  in  Massachusetts 
charged  with  a  capital  offence,  to  be  tried  in 
another  colony  or  in  Great  Britain.  This  mass 
of  punitive  legislation  was  virtually  a  declaration 
of  war,  and  such  the  colonists  felt  it  to  be.  The 
first  measure,  they  said,  took  away  the  property 
of  unoffending  thousands  for  the  act  of  a  few 
individuals,  the  second  annihilated  their  chartered 
liberties,  and  the  third  made  their  lives  liable  to 
be  destroyed  with  impunity. 

Chatham  was  not  well  enough  to  speak  in  the 
earlier  debates  of  this  time.  But  his  thoughts  on 
the  coercive  policy  of  1774  may  be  effectually 
gathered  from  a  letter  which  he  wrote  to 
Shelbume  in  March.  In  this  he  said  that  the 
violence  committed  upon  the  tea  cargo  was 
certainly  criminal,  and  Boston  owed  reparation 
to  the  East  India  Company  for  the  destruction  of 
its  property.  "  But,"  he  went  on,  "  the  methods 
proposed  by  way  of  coercion  appear  to  me  too 
severe,  as  well  as  highly  exceptionable  in  order  of 
time,  for  reparation  ought  first  to  be  demanded 


i84  CHATHAM 

in  a  solemn  manner,  and  refused  by  the  town  and 
magistracy  of  Boston,  before  such  a  Bill  of  pains 
and  penalties  can  be  called  just.  Perhaps  a  fatal 
desire  to  take  advantage  of  this  guilty  tumult  of 
the  Bostonians  in  order  to  crush  the  spirit  of 
liberty  among  the  Americans  in  general,  has 
taken  possession  of  the  heart  of  Government.  If 
that  mad  and  cruel  measure  should  be  pushed, 
one  needs  not  to  be  a  prophet  to  say  England  has 
seen  her  best  days."  ^  Five  months  later  he 
sounded  the  same  despondent  note  :  "  I  fear  the 
bond  of  union  between  us  and  America  will  be 
cut  off  for  ever.  Devoted  England  will  then 
have  seen  her  best  days,  which  nothing  can 
restore  again  !  "  ^ 

He  reappeared  in  the  House  of  Lords  in  the 
course  of  the  year,  and,  in  a  speech  upon  the  Bill 
for  quartering  soldiers  on  the  Americans,  uttered 
a  solemn  and  impressive  plea  for  conciliation. 
And  if  England  could  have  realised  in  its  full 
extent  the  magnitude  of  the  task  before  her,  she 
might  even  now  have  again  retraced  her  steps. 
For  America  had  rallied  instantly  to  the  side 
of  Boston.  From  Salem  and  Marblehead,  the 
two  neighbouring  communities  which  had  been 
selected  to  ruin  her,  to  the  distant  colonies  of  the 
Carolinas,  came  not  only  sympathy  but  substantial 
aid.     And  a  more  speaking  sign  of  the  times  than 

^  Chatham  Correspondence,  iv.  336,  337.  ^  Ibid.  iv.  361. 


THE  BREACH  WITH  AMERICA     185 

even  the  succour  of  Boston  was  furnished  by  the 
great  Congress  at  Philadelphia,  in  which  the 
representatives  of  twelve  colonies  met.  Before 
the  end  of  October  it  had  drawn  up  that  series 
of  resolutions  and  addresses  the  determined  lines 
of  which  made  clear  that,  if  the  idea  of  inde- 
pendence was  still  scouted  by  the  vast  majority  of 
the  American  people,  coercion  was  none  the  less 
impossible. 

Chatham's  attitude  towards  the  Congress  de- 
serves more  than  a  passing  thought,  as  it  lay  at 
the  foundation  of  his  later  American  policy.  He 
realised  its  supreme  importance  as  representing 
the  collective  opinion  of  America,  and  he  dis- 
cerned the  great  part  which  it  might  play  alike 
in  negotiation  and  in  any  scheme  of  reconstruction 
that  should  be  mooted.  For  the  spirit  in  which 
it  went  to  work  he  had  nothing  but  the  heartiest 
approval.  "  I  have  not  words  to  express  my 
satisfaction,"  he  wi'ote  on  Christmas  Eve,  "that 
the  Congress  has  conducted  this  most  arduous 
and  delicate  business  with  such  manly  wisdom 
and  calm  resolution  as  do  the  highest  honour  to 
their  deliberations.  Very  few  are  the  things 
contained  in  their  resolves  that  I  could  wish 
had  been  otherwise.  Upon  the  whole,  I  think  it 
must  be  evident  to  every  unprejudiced  man  in 
England  who  feels  for  the  rights  of  mankind,  that 
America,  under  all  her  oppressions  and  provoca- 


i86  CHATHAM 

tions,  holds  forth  to  us  the  most  fair  and  just 
opening  for  restoring  harmony  and  affectionate 
intercourse  as  heretofore."  ^ 

But  Chatham  did  not  confine  his  views  at  this 
crisis  to  his  private  correspondence.  He  meant 
to  make  them  heard  in  ParHament,  and  in 
January  1775  he  did  so.  His  enemies  would 
have  been  only  too  glad  if  he  had  kept  silence. 
Infinite  pains  were  being  taken^  as  we  learn  from 
a  note  written  by  Lady  Chatham  to  her  husband 
two  days  before  the  debate,  to  create  an  impres- 
sion that  he  was  determined  not  to  trouble 
himself  about  American  affairs,  and  that  he  did 
not  intend  to  come  to  town.  "  For  God's  sake, 
sweet  life,"  he  wrote  in  answer,  "  don't  disquiet 
yourself  about  the  impudent  and  ridiculous  lie  of 
the  hour.  It  is  only  a  pitiful  device  of  fear ; 
Court  fear  and  faction  fear.  If  gout  does  not  put 
in  a  veto,  which  I  trust  in  Heaven  it  will  not,  I 
will  be  in  the  House  of  Lords  on  Friday,  then 
and  there  to  make  a  motion  relative  to  America." 
He  meant,  as  he  said  grimly  next  day,  to  knock 
at  the  Minister's  door  to  wake  him.2 

The  debate  took  place  on  January  20,  when 
he  moved  for  an  address  to  the  King  to  with- 
draw the  troops  from  Boston.  His  speech  was 
memorable,  as  were  also  some  of  the  circumstances 
of  its  delivery.     For  among  Chatham's  audience 

^  Chatham  Correspondence,  iv.  368.  ^  Ibid.  iv.  370,  371. 


THE  BREACH  WITH  AMERICA     187 

was  William  Pitt,  then  a  Cambridge  undergradu- 
ate of  fifteen,  but  destined  within  nine  years  to 
be  Pi-ime  Minister  of  England  ;  and  his  enthusi- 
astic appreciation  of  his  father's  oratory  is  attested 
by  the  charming  note  he  wrote  to  his  mother  on 
the  morning  after  the  debate.  There  too,  by 
Chatham's  special  desire,  was  Franklin.  Supremely 
indifferent  whether  or  not  the  great  American 
had  been  ostracised  by  official  England,  Chatham 
himself  led  him  into  the  House  of  Lords  and,  as 
he  handed  him  over  to  the  charge  of  the  door- 
keeper, said,  "  This  is  Dr.  Franklin,  whom  I  would 
have  admitted  into  the  House,"  in  tones  loud 
enough  for  the  surrounding  throng  of  Peers  and 
friends  of  Peers  to  hear. 

Chatham  was  the  leader  of  a  forlorn  hope,  but 
his  assault  was  boldly  and  unflinchingly  delivered. 
Gage's  army  in  Boston,  he  said,  was  an  army  of 
impotence  and  irritation  ;  he  urged  Parliament  to 
adopt  the  conciliatory  measure  of  withdrawing  it. 
"  If  illegal  violences  have  been,  as  it  is  said, 
committed  in  America,  prepare  the  way,  open 
the  door  of  possibility,  for  acknowledgment  and 
satisfaction ;  but  proceed  not  to  such  coercion, 
such  proscription ;  cease  your  indiscriminate  in- 
flictions ;  amerce  not  thirty  thousand,  oppress  not 
three  millions,  for  the  fault  of  forty  or  fifty 
individuals.  Such  severity  of  justice  must  for 
ever    render    incurable    the    wounds   you    have 


i88  CHATHAM 

already  given  your  colonies  ;  you  irritate  them  to 
unappeasable  rancour.  What  though  you  march 
from  town  to  town,  and  from  province  to  province ; 
though  you  should  be  able  to  enforce  a  temporary 
and  local  submission,  which  I  only  suppose,  not 
admit, — how  shall  you  be  able  to  secure  the 
obedience  of  the  country  you  leave  behind  you  in 
your  progress,  to  grasp  the  dominion  of  eighteen 
hundred  miles  of  continent,  populous  in  numbers, 
possessing  valour,  liberty,  and  resistance  ?  .  .  . 
As  an  American,  I  would  recognise  to  England 
her  supreme  right  of  regulating  commerce  and 
navigation ;  as  an  Englishman  in  burth  and 
principles,  I  recognise  to  the  Americans  their 
supreme  inalienable  right  in  their  property — a 
right  which  they  are  justified  in  the  defence  of  to 
the  last  extremity.  To  maintain  this  principle  is 
the  common  cause  of  the  Whigs  on  the  other  side 
of  the  Atlantic,  and  on  this.  'Tis  liberty  to 
liberty  engaged,'  that  they  will  defend  themselves, 
their  families,  and  their  country.  In  this  great 
cause  they  are  immovably  allied  ;  it  is  the  alliance 
of  God  and  nature — immutable,  eternal — fixed  as 
the  firmament  of  heaven.  For  myself,  I  must 
declare  and  avow  that  in  all  my  reading  and 
observation — and  it  has  been  my  favourite  study  ; 
I  have  read  Thucydides,  and  have  studied  and 
admired  the  master-states  of  the  world — that  for 
solidity  of  reasoning,  force  of  sagacity,  and  wisdom 


THE  BREACH  WITH  AMERICA     189 

of  conclusion^  no  nation  or  body  of  men  can 
stand  in  preference  to  the  general  Congress  at 
Philadelphia." 

If  the  Ministers  persevered  in  misadvising  and 
misleading  the  King,  Chatham  concluded,  "  I  will 
not  say  that  they  can  alienate  the  affections  of 
his  subjects  from  his  Crown  ;  but  I  will  affirm 
that  they  will  make  the  Crown  not  worth  his 
wearing.  I  will  not  say  that  the  King  is 
betrayed  ;  but  I  will  pronounce  that  the  kingdom 
is  undone."  ^  Not  content  with  a  single  great 
oration,  he  rose  in  the  course  of  the  debate  to 
make  another  shorter  speech.  It  was  one  of  his 
energetic  days.  On  the  next  morning  William 
Pitt  wrote  to  Lady  Chatham :  "  My  father  has 
slept  well,  without  any  burning  in  the  feet  or 
restlessness.  He  has  had  no  pain,  but  is  lame  in 
one  ankle  near  the  instep,  from  standing  so  long. 
No  wonder  he  is  lame,  his  first  speech  lasted 
above  an  hour,  and  the  second  half  an  hour — 
surely  the  two  finest  speeches  that  ever  were 
made  before,  unless  by  himself!  He  will  be 
with  you  to  dinner  by  four  o'clock."  ^ 

While  few,  if  any,  English  statesmen  have 
exercised  a  greater  influence  by  sheer  unaided 
eloquence  than  Chatham,  none  have  realised 
more  fully  than  he  the  necessity  of  translating 
eloquence  into  action.     It  is  characteristic  of  him, 

1  Chatham  Correspondence,  iv.  377-384.  ^  Ibid,  iv.  377. 


I90  CHATHAM 

that,  ten  days  after  the  delivery  of  this  speech,  he 
came  forward  with  a  Bill  for  settling  the  troubles 
in  America.  This  was  his  most  detailed  con- 
tribution towards  the  solution  of  the  American 
question.  Whatever  the  futility  of  such  a  pro- 
posal at  a  time  when  not  the  wisdom  of  Solomon 
could  have  turned  Parliament  from  the  course 
upon  which  it  was  obstinately  bent,  it  remains  a 
monument  of  Chatham's  ideas  of  constructive 
statesmanship.  He  fully  countenanced  Imperial 
supremacy  on  the  one  hand,  and  colonial  self- 
government  on  the  other;  the  problem  was  to 
make  the  two  principles  compatible.  His  Bill 
gave  to  the  colonies  the  sole  right  of  self-taxation, 
made  their  charters  inviolable,  and  reformed  the 
tenure  of  their  judges  and  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
Admiralty  Courts.  At  the  same  time  it  decisively 
affirmed  the  supreme  authority  of  Parliament  in 
all  matters  that  could  properly  be  called  Imperial, 
particularly  commerce  and  navigation ;  and  it 
asserted  the  right  to  despatch  annies  to  any 
colony  without  the  assent  of  the  colonial 
assemblies. 

These  may  be  called  the  indispensable  con- 
ditions of  any  scheme  of  settlement,  but  by 
themselves  they  were  not  enough.  There  was 
need  of  some  mediating  body  to  adjust  the 
burden  of  colonial  contribution,  to  represent 
adequately  American    opinion,  and    to   maintain 


EDMUND    BURKE 
After  the  portrait  by  Reynolds  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery 


THE  BREACH  WITH  AMERICA     191 

diplomatic  relations  with  the  British  Parliament. 
Such  a  body  Chatham  sought  and  found  in  the 
Philadelphia  Congress.  It  was  to  be  legalised 
and  made  permanent ;  it  was  to  be  asked  to  make 
a  free  grant  to  the  Imperial  revenue,  and  to  fix 
the  proportion  to  be  paid  by  each  province ;  and 
it  was  to  avow  the  ultimate  supremacy  of  Parlia- 
ment, as  a  preliminary  to  the  exercise  of  the  right 
of  self-taxation  and  the  repeal  of  the  coercive 
Acts. 

This  recognition  of  the  Congress  is'what  mainly 
differentiates  Chatham's  Bill  from  the  scheme 
outlined  by  Burke  in  the  great  speech  on  Con- 
ciliation with  America  which  he  delivered  on 
March  22,  1775.  Of  Burke's  proposals  it  may 
be  said  that  they  would  have  restored  the  status 
quo,  but  there  was  no  guarantee  that  they  would 
preserve  it.  Chatham  was  probably  right  in 
thinking  that  the  best  security  for  the  colonies 
against  Parliamentary  encroachment  was  that 
their  strength  and  unity  should  be  made  so 
patent  that  the  bare  idea  of  coercion  must  be 
dismissed  from  the  British  mind.  In  objection  to 
his  scheme  it  may  of  course  be  said  that,  as  soon 
as  the  Congress  made  America  articulate  and 
conscious  of  her  strength,  she  was  bound  to  break 
away.  But  on  Chatham's  side  must  be  remem- 
bered the  moderate  attitude  which  the  Congress 
in  point  of  fact  took  up,  and  the  united  testimony 


iga  CHATHAM 

of  Franklin,  Washington,  Jefferson,  and  John 
AdamSji  that  what  the  mass  of  colonists  desired 
was  not  separation  but  redress.  Chatham's  Bill, 
in  any  case,  deserves  most  careful  consideration 
from  all  who  would  appreciate  his  policy  as  an 
organiser  of  empire.  Characteristic  of  it  was  his 
willingness  to  transform  the  de  facto  Government 
of  Congress,  the  ''rebel  assembly,"  into  a  de  Jure 
Government  as  an  official  body,  and  his  imwavering 
belief  in  the  political  genius  of  the  American 
people ;  characteristic  above  all  was  his  dream 
of  a  federation  under  the  British  flag.  That 
dream  may  have  been  too  far  advanced  for  his 
age,  but  we  who  see  a  Dominion  of  Canada  and 
an  Australian  Commonwealth  can  scarcely  call  it 
visionaiy. 

Parliament,  however,  treated  the  Bill  much  more 
summarily,  and  refused  to  admit  it  to  a  second 
reading.  Burke's  resolutions  met  the  same  fate. 
Then  another  catastrophe  overtook  the  Opposition. 
Chatham  collapsed  again,  and  without  him  it  was 
maimed.  For  two  years  he  was  withdrawn  from 
politics — the  two  years  which  saw  the  first  blood 
shed  at  Lexington,  and  the  opening  indecisive 
period  of  the  war.  During  1776  we  catch 
occasional  glimpses  of  his  attitude  towards  the 
struggle.  He  treated  it  as  a  civil  war,  "the 
unhappy  war  with  our  fellow-subjects  of  America." 

^  Lecky,  History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  iv.  185. 


THE  BREACH  WITH  AMERICA     193 

Consistently  with  this  view,  he  refused  to  allow 
his  eldest  son,  who  had  been  in  Canada  under 
Carleton,  to  serve  against  the  colonists.  To  Dr. 
Addington,  his  physician,  he  made  a  formal 
declaration  that  his  feelings  with  regard  to 
America  were  unchanged,  and  identical  with  those 
set  forth  by  him  in  the  Bill  which  he  had  offered 
to  the  House  of  Lords.  "  Confiding  in  the 
friendship  of  Dr.  Addington,  he  requested  of  him 
to  preserve  this  in  memoiy ;  that  in  case  he 
should  not  recover  from  the  long  illness  under 
which  he  laboured,  the  doctor  might  be  enabled 
to  do  him  justice  by  bearing  testimony  that  he 
persevered  unshaken  in  the  same  opinions." 
Chatham  added  that  he  was  fully  persuaded  that 
in  a  very  few  years  France  would  set  her  foot  on 
English  ground.  Her  policy  for  the  present 
would  probably  be  to  wait  while  England  plunged 
herself  still  more  inextricably  in  the  ruinous 
American  War.  During  this  time  she  would  abet 
America  indirectly,  but  she  would  in  the  end  take 
the  open  course  of  declaring  war  upon  England.  ^ 

This  declaration  was  made  by  Chatham  in  July 
1776,  and  it  is  an  extraordinarily  true  picture  of 
the  course  which  France  had  in  fact  just  decided 
to  take.  Vergennes,  her  Foreign  Minister,  had 
at  the  beginning  of  the  year  drawn  up  the 
celebrated  memorial  in  which  he  laid  down  what 

^  Chatham  Correspondence^  iv,  424»  4*5' 
13 


194  CHATHAM 

should  be  the  true  course  of  French  policy  in 
view  of  the  American  War.  If  the  military  and 
financial  means  of  the  two  Bourbon  kings  had 
been  in  a  state  of  development  proportionate  to 
their  substantial  power,  he  said,  "it  would,  no 
doubt,  be  necessary  to  say  to  them  that  Providence 
had  marked  out  this  moment  for  the  humiliation 
of  England."  But  though  a  unique  opportunity 
was  offered  by  the  conflict  to  reduce  England  to 
the  status  of  a  secondary  power,  and  France  and 
Spain  should  not  shrink  ultimately  from  open  war, 
for  the  present  their  policy  must  be  confined  to 
giving  secret  assistance  to  the  Amerfcans.  In 
exact  accordance  with  the  prediction  of  Chatham, 
Vergennes  declared :  "  The  continuance  of  the 
war  for  at  least  one  year  is  desirable  to  the  two 
Crowns.  To  that  end  the  British  Ministry  must 
be  maintained  in  the  persuasion  that  France  and 
Spain  are  pacific,  so  that  it  may  not  fear  to 
embark  in  an  active  and  costly  campaign ;  while, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  courage  of  the  Americans 
should  be  kept  up  by  secret  favours  and  vague 
hopes  which  will  prevent  accommodation." 

There  is  much  in  the  situation  in  France  at  this 
moment  upon  which  it  is  tempting  to  linger — the 
differing  policies  of  Vergennes  and  Turgot,  the 
zenith  of  Franklin's  curious  ascendency  in  Paris, 
the  idealisation  of  the  American  rebellion  by 
sympathetic  French    thought,  and  the   Nemesis 


THE  BREACH  WITH  AMERICA     195 

by  which  the  consequences  of  France's  inter- 
vention recoiled  upon  her  own  head  in  the  shape 
of  the  French  Revolution  ;  but  we  must  content 
ourselves  with  noting  the  broad  facts  of  the 
position.  Obedient  to  Vergennes,  the  Govern- 
ment adopted  unhesitatingly  the  policy  of  revenge. 
In  the  course  of  1776  France  furnished  America 
with  a  substantial  loan,  and  a  continued  stream  of 
munitions  of  war.  The  note  of  alarm  which 
Chatham  sounded  with  regard  to  French  aggres- 
sion was  thus  amply  justified.  It  is  probable  that 
the  information  with  which  he  was  supplied 
was  much  more  complete  than  that  which  was 
at  the  disposal  of  the  British  Government,  but 
nothing  can  excuse  the  lethargy  of  that  Govern- 
ment in  the  face  of  a  patent  and  stupendous 
danger. 

In  the  spring  of  1777  Chatham  was  well  enough 
to  reappear  in  Parliament,  and  on  May  30  he 
brought  forward  a  motion  for  the  cessation  of 
hostilities.  Weak  as  he  still  was,  we  have 
William  Pitt's  assurance  that  his  speech  was  full 
of  his  usual  force  and  vivacity.  He  dwelt  on  the 
menacing  attitude  of  France,  whose  pretensions, 
he  said,  were  increasing  daily,  while  she  still 
deferred  as  long  as  possible  the  actual  signing  of 
a  treaty  with  America.  Our  chances  of  dis- 
persing the  American  forces  were  remote.  "  I 
might  as  well  talk  of  driving  them  before  me 


196  CHATHAM 

with  this  crutch."  ^  In  the  debate  on  the 
address  on  November  20  he  was  again  in  his 
place,  and  moved  an  amendment  that  the  King 
should  be  pleased  to  cause  the  most  speedy  and 
effectual  measures  to  be  taken  for  restoring  peace 
in  America.  He  declared  persistently  that  its 
conquest  was  an  impossibility.  He  urged  that  it 
was  not  even  yet  too  late  to  appeal  to  "  the  sound 
parts  of  America/'  by  which  he  meant  the  middle 
and  southern  colonies.  In  almost  humorous 
tones  of  national  pride  he  expressed  his  disbelief 
that  the  colonists,  the  sons  of  England,  could 
combine  seriously  with  her  ancestral  foes. 
"  America  and  France  cannot  be  congenial ;  there 
is  something  decisive  and  confirmed  in  the  honest 
American  that  will  not  assimilate  to  the  futility 
and  levity  of  Frenchmen." 

Then,  in  a  passage  which  is  among  the  best 
remembered  fragments  of  his  oratory,  he  de- 
nounced the  policy  which  had  not  shrunk  from 
employing  against  the  colonists  the  terrors  of 
Indian  war.  "  But,  my  lords,  who  is  the  man 
that,  in  addition  to  these  disgraces  and  mischiefs 
of  an  army,  has  dared  to  authorise  and  associate 
to  our  arms  the  tomahawk  and  scalping  knife  of 
the  savage  ?  To  call  into  civilised  alliance  the 
wild  and  inhuman  savage  of  the  woods ;  to 
delegate  to  the  merciless  Indian  the  defence  of 

*  Chatham  Correspondence ,  iv.  433. 


THE  BREACH  WITH  AMERICA     197 

disputed  rights,  and  to  wage  the  horrors  of  his 
barbarous  war  against  our  brethren  ? "  Lord 
Suffolk  was  incautious  enough  to  say  in  reply  that 
"it  was  perfectly  justifiable  to  use  all  the  means 
that  God  and  nature  put  into  our  hands."  This 
roused  Chatham  once  more.  With  a  rhetoric" 
grandiose  and  elaborate  indeed,  but  none  the  less 
the  spontaneous  expression  of  his  imaginative 
mind,  he  reprobated  "  principles  equally  abhorrent 
to  religion  and  humanity."  "  I  call  upon  the 
bishops  to  interpose  the  unsullied  sanctity  of  their 
lawn,  upon  the  learned  judges  to  interpose  the 
purity  of  their  ermine,  to  save  us  from  this 
pollution ;  I  call  upon  the  honour  of  your 
lordships  to  reverence  the  dignity  of  your 
ancestors,  and  to  maintain  your  own ;  I  call  upon 
the  spirit  and  humanity  of  my  country  to  vindicate 
the  national  character;  I  invoke  the  genius  of 
the  Constitution."  ^ 

And  now  it  seemed  as  if  the  star  of  England 
was  at  last  about  to  set.  On  October  17,  1777, 
Burgoyne  had  surrendered  at  Saratoga.  At  the 
beginning  of  December  the  news  was  brought  to 
Paris,  and  France  immediately  entered  into  formal 
alliance  with  America.  In  March  1778  the 
French  ambassador  in  London  made  known  the 
treaty,  diplomatic  relations  were  broken  off,  and 
war  with  France  began.    England  stood  absolutely 

*  Chatham  Correspondence,  iv.  450-459. 


igS  CHATHAM 

alone,  with  a  discredited  Ministry,  an  inadequate 
navy,  and  an  army  locked  up  in  the  New  World. 
Saratoga  had  so  far  impressed  the  King  that, 
before  the  Franco-American  alliance  was  made 
public,  he  had  allowed  the  Ministry  to  enter 
upon  a  policy  of  conciliation,  to  give  up  all  the 
points  in  dispute,  and  to  despatch  peace  com- 
missioners to  America.  But  any  boon  which  was 
offered  to  the  colonists  by  the  hands  of  North  was 
fated  to  rejection,  and  rejection  was  doubly  cer- 
tain when  France  stood  forth  as  America's  ally. 

At  this  supreme  and  culminating  moment  all 
eyes  in  England  turned  to  Chatham.  His  genius 
alone  was  equally  potent  for  conquest  and  concilia- 
tion. No  other  name  was  so  loved  in  America, 
none  was  so  terrible  to  France,  Even  now,  with 
an  invincible  optimism,  he  still  refused  to  believe 
that  the  breach  with  the  colonies  was  final.  He 
only  clung  to  them  with  a  more  passionate 
assurance  when  France  prepared  to  enter  upon 
"the  dismemberment  of  this  ancient  and  most 
noble  monarchy."  While  the  Rockingham  Whigs 
were  prepared,  in  order  to  halve  the  danger,  to 
let  the  colonies  go,  Chatham's  view  was  that  no 
foreign  intervention  should  be  allowed  to  shatter 
the  essential  unity  of  the  English-speaking  race. 
His  policy  was  therefore  to  concentrate  all 
military  effort  upon  the  defeat  of  France,  and  to 
retain  the  colonies,  even  though  they  struggled 


THE  BREACH  WITH  AMERICA     199 

to  depart,  until  by  his  own  persuasive  counsels, 
and  his  overthrow  of  their  ally,  he  led  them  back  to 
that  allegiance  which  he  hoped  and  believed  they 
were  still  ready  to  embrace  once  more.  It  may 
safely  be  said  that  no  one  but  Chatham  could  have 
carried  out  such  a  policy,  and  that  even  in  his 
hands  it  would  have  presented  almost  insuperable 
difficulties.  But  it  was  the  one  absolutely  honour- 
able and  statesmanlike  course,  and  Chatham  was 
so  unquestionably  the  first  of  living  politicians 
that  it  was  a  national  duty  to  commit  the  country 
to  his  guidance. 

Everything  pointed  one  way,  and  even  Bute 
and  Mansfield  gave  expression  to  the  desire  of 
the  people.  North  himself  entreated  the  King 
to  send  for  Chatham.  But  George  the  Third 
remained  obdurate  and  unmoved.  He  knew  that 
Chatham's  advent  would  mean  the  reversal  of  his 
own  personal  regime,  and  the  overthrow  of  the 
Court  party  and  the  Crown  influence  which  he 
had  made  it  the  object  of  his  reign  to  establish. 
He  refused  to  put  Chatham  in  power ;  he  refused 
to  make  any  sort  of  concession  to  him  except 
the  preposterous  offer  of  a  subordinate  place  to 
North.  He  thus  deliberately  closed  the  door  by 
which  alone  it  seemed  possible  that  succour  and 
success  might  come.  His  conduct  in  so  doing 
has  been  pronounced  by  Mr.  Lecky  to  be  as 
criminal  as  any  of  those  acts  which  led  Charles 


200  CHATHAM 

the  First  to  the  scaffold.^  It  has  been  dimmed 
in  the  popular  recollection,  because  the  death  of 
Chatham  followed  it  so  quickly  as  to  produce  the 
impression  that,  whatever  line  of  action  the  King 
had  taken,  the  consequences  must  have  been  the 
same.  But  George  the  Third  is  not  to  be  so 
lightly  acquitted  at  the  bar  of  history.  Even  a 
month  of  Chatham's  leadership  might  have  done 
much;  and,  in  any  case,  our  after-knowledge  of 
the  event  cannot  extenuate  in  the  least  degree 
the  culpability  of  the  King's  action. 

On  April  7  Chatham  spoke  for  the  last  time 
in  the  House  of  Lords.  The  Duke  of  Richmond 
was  to  move  that  the  British  forces  should  be 
withdrawn  from  America,  thus  tacitly  conceding 
independence.  Though  almost  prostrate  with 
illness,  Chatham  came  down  to  oppose  the  motion. 
In  a  black  suit  and  swathed  with  flannel  he 
entered  the  House,  leaning  upon  crutches,  and 
supported  on  either  side  by  his  son  William  and 
his  son-in-law  Lord  Mahon.  After  Richmond  had 
spoken  he  rose  with  difficulty.  His  voice  was 
low,  and  at  times  his  memory  lapsed,  but  the 
House  of  Commons  which  he  used  to  sway  never 
listened  to  him  with  more  awestruck  attention 
than  did  the  House  of  Lords  on  this  supreme 
occasion.  His  pale  and  sunken  face  and  glittering 
eye  warned  his  audience  only  too  surely  that  they 

^  Histortj  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  iv.  458. 


2       "3 


THE  BREACH  WITH  AMERICA     201 

were  witnessing  the  closing  scene  of  an  historic 
life.  A  thrill  must  have  passed  through  them 
like  that  which  pierced  the  heart  of  Wordsworth 
when,  on  a  stormy  evening  at  Grasmere,  he 
heard  of  the  expected  end  of  Charles  James 
Fox — 

"A  Power  is  passing  from  the  earth 
To  breathless  nature's  dark  abyss." 

No  other  speech  of  Chatham's  breathes  a  more 
indomitable  patriotism  than  the  last  words  which 
he  spoke  with  the  hand  of  death  upon  him. 
While  English  history  is  read  and  English  oratory 
remembered,  it  will  not  be  forgotten  how  he 
rejoiced  that  he  was  still  alive  to  lift  up  his  voice 
"  against  the  dismemberment  of  this  ancient  and 
most  noble  monarchy "  ;  how  he  asked  whether 
the  great  kingdom  that  had  survived  whole  and 
entire  all  shocks  from  the  Danish  depredations 
to  the  Armada,  was  now  to  fall  prostrate  before 
the  House  of  Bourbon,  whether  it  was  to  stoop  so 
low  as  to  say  to  its  ancient  inveterate  enemy, 
"  Take  all  we  have,  only  give  us  peace !  "  and 
how,  finally,  he  urged  his  fellow-countrymen  to 
make  at  least  one  effort,  and,  if  they  were  to  fall, 
to  fall  like  men.i 

Richmond  replied,  and  then  Chatham  tried  to 
rise  again,  but,  pressing  his  hand  to  his  heart,  he 

^  Chatham  Correspondence,  iv.  519. 


202  CHATHAM 

/ 

sank  down  speechless  and  unconscious./  He  was 

carried  to  Downing  Street,  and  thence  to  Hayes. 
There  for  more  than  four  weeks  he  lingered, 
tended  by  his  wife  and  children.  We  know  that, 
while  he  thus  lay  dying,  he  had  read  to  him 
Homer's  narrative  of  the  burial  of  Hector  and  the 
lamentation  of  Troy. 

On  May  11  he  passed  away.  A  public 
funeral  had  been  voted,  and  he  was  laid  in 
Westminster  Abbey.  Macaulay's  sonorous  prose 
has  once  for  all  described  the  scene.  "The 
banner  of  the  lordship  of  Chatham  was  borne  by 
Colonel  Barre,  attended  by  the  Duke  of  Richmond 
and  Lord  Rockingham.  Burke,  SaVile,  and 
Dunning  upheld  the  pall.  Lord  Camden  was 
conspicuous  in  the  procession.  The  chief  mourner 
was  young  William  Pitt.  After  the  lapse  of  more 
than  twenty-seven  years,  in  a  season  as  dark  and 
perilous,  his  own  shattered  frame  and  broken 
heart  were  laid,  with  the  same  pomp,  in  the  same 
consecrated  mould."  ^ 

^  The  Earl  of  Chatham  (Second  Essay). 


CHAPTER  X 


CHARACTERISTICS 


Burke  upon  Chatham — Later  views — Chatham  as  a  young 
politician — His  lack  of  Parliamentary  influence  as  then 
understood  —  His  integrity  —  Inconsistencies  produced 
by  his  ambition — The  mimetic  element  in  his  character 
— His  oratory — Essentially  a  man  of  action — Signifi- 
cance of  his  career  in  Imperial  and  domestic  politics — 
His  patriotism  and  love  of  liberty. 

TWELVE  years  afterwards,  Burke,  while  look- 
ing through  Lord  Rockingham's  papers, 
came  upon  a  letter  written  to  his  old  leader  by 
Chatham  in  1770,  and  on  the  back  of  it  made  the 
following  note  : — "July  13,  1792.  Looking  over 
poor  Lord  Rockingham's  papers,  I  find  this  letter 
from  a  man  wholly  unlike  him.  It  concerns  my 
pamphlet  ("The  Cause  of  the  Discontents").  I 
remember  to  have  seen  this  knavish  letter  at  the 
time.  The  pamphlet  is  itself,  by  anticipation,  an 
answer  to  that  grand  artificer  of  fraud.  He  would 
not  like  it.  It  is  pleasant  to  hear  him  talk  of  the 
great  extensive  public,  who   never    conversed  but 

20S 


204  CHATHAM 

with  a  parcel  of  low  toadeaters.  Alas !  alas  ! 
how  different  the  real  from  the  ostensible  public 
man  !  Must  all  this  theatrical  stuffing  and  raised 
heels  be  necessaiy  for  the  character  of  a  great 
man  ? — Edmund  Burke." 

Then,  as  if  suddenly  smitten  with  a  pang  of 
remorse,  he  adds  the  qualification :  "  Oh,  but 
this  does  not  derogate  from  his  great,  splendid 
side.     God  forbid."  ^ 

Posterity  has  revised  Burke's  judgment,  but 
yet,  alike  in  its  scathing  criticism  and  its  outburst 
of  generous  eulogy,  it  represents  not  unfairly  the 
perplexity  and  the  fluctuations  of  opinion  which 
have  been  felt  by  all  those  who  have  tried  to 
estimate  the  career  and  character  of  Chatham. 
That  career  abounded  in  dramatic  contrasts,  and 
these  have  tended  to  seize  upon  the  imagination, 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  features  in  his  life. 
Historical  writers,  whether  consciously  or  not, 
have  given  strength  to  this  tendency.  The 
stereotyped  portrait  of  Chatham  is  probably 
Macaulay's.  Now,  though  Macaulay  in  his  two 
celebrated  Essays  yields  far  less  than  might  have 
been  expected,  in  view  of  the  nature  of  his 
subject  and  his  own  passion  for  antithesis,  to  the 
temptation  of  dwelling  exclusively  upon  the 
vicissitudes  and  incongruities  in  the  life  of 
Chatham,  he  could  not  fail,  and  it  was  hardly  to 

^  Rofkingham  Memoirs,  ii.  195 


CHARACTERISTICS  205 

be  wished  that  he  should  fail,  to  make  the  most 
of  his  opportunity  for  presenting  effectively  the 
contrasted  lights  and  shades  in  one  of  the  most 
singular  careers  of  modern  English  history.  The 
same  result  is  apparent  in  the  less  dramatic  but 
much  more  luminous  and  suggestive  survey  of 
Chatham's  life  by  Mr.  Lecky.  "  Of  all  very 
great  Englishmen,"  writes  the  latter,  "he  is 
perhaps  the  one  in  whom  there  was  the  largest 
admixture  of  the  qualities  of  a  charlatan."  ^ 

That  in  a  sense  such  a  delineation  and  such 
strictures  are  just,  no  one  will  be  disposed  to  deny. 
The  incongruities  in  Chatham's  character  are  of 
the  first  importance,  and  they  are  in  themselves 
so  striking  that  the  descriptive  powers  of  an 
historian  are  not  in  much  danger  of  exaggerating 
them.  But,  though  in  a  presentment  of  the  life 
of  Chatham  they  must  always  dominate  the 
picture,  they  cannot  be  rightly  understood  unless 
full  account  is  taken  of  the  underlying  causes 
which  made  them  what  they  were.  We  must 
beware  of  regarding  Chatham  as  a  mere  bundle  of 
contradictions.  Whatever  his  qualities  and  de- 
fects, the  extraordinary  position  he  achieved  in 
the  course  of  his  self-made  career  forbids  us  to 
disbelieve  in  his  tenacity  of  purpose  ;  and  the 
fact  that  he  was  a  great  rather  than  a  small  man 
should  only  lead  us  to  look,  and  to  look  rightly, 

^  H'utory  of  England  in  tie  Eighteenth  Century,  ii.  401. 


3o6  CHATHAM 

for  that  unity  of  will  and  character  which,  while 
traceable  in  the  personality  of  all  men,  is  only 
manifest  fully  in  the  strong. 

He  entered  on  that  political  life  in  which  all 
his  desires  and  hopes  were  centred,  a  young  man 
of  boundless  ambitions.  He  knew  that  he  had 
extraordinary  powers,  and  that  if  he  were  given 
a  fair  field  nothing  could  prevent  him  from  being 
the  first  man  in  the  country.  But  he  laboured 
under  disabilities.  He  was  a  political  adventurer 
in  the  sense  in  which  Canning  and  Disraeli,  in 
differing  degrees,  were  accounted  political  ad- 
venturers after  him.  By  this  it  is  not  meant  that 
he  was  a  low-principled  opportunist,  but  merely 
that  he  had  not  a  stake  in  the  country  like  most 
of  his  contemporaries,  and  that  he  trusted  to  rise 
by  the  unassisted  force  of  his  genius  in  an  age 
when  the  carriere  ouverte  aux  talents  was  by  no 
means  an  established  maxim  of  Parliamentary 
life. 

It  is  true  that  he  was  carried  into  Parliament 
for  Old  Sarum,  the  classic  example  of  rotten 
boroughs  for  all  time.  But,  though  that  is  a 
piquant  circumstance  in  the  life  of  our  first  great 
democratic  statesman,  it  is  not  of  great  importance 
to  an  estimate  of  the  position  of  Chatham.  The 
borough  was  a  family  possession,  but  the  other 
gifts  which  his  family  could  make  to  him  were 
few.     He  was  not  enrolled  on  the  list  of  any  of 


CHARACTERISTICS  207 

those  bands  of  placemen  which  moved  in  solid 
and  ignoble  phalanx  in  the  train  of  the  great 
magnates  of  the  time.  He  had  been  brought 
into  Parliament,  but  once  there  he  was  compelled 
to  make  his  own  way.  Certain  political  associa- 
tions, indeed,  he  had :  the  connection  of  his 
family  with  the  Stanhopes,  his  alliance  with  the 
Grenvilles  under  the  banner  of  Lord  Cobham, 
his  espousal  of  the  Prince  of  Wales's  cause  and 
enrolment  in  the  Prince's  household,  all  helped 
him  and  rescued  him  from  the  obscurity  of 
isolation.  But  as  elements  of  influence  these  fell 
far  short  of  the  ideal  of  the  ordinary  eighteenth- 
century  politician. 

In  spite  of  the  rich  abundance  of  memoirs  and 
letters  on  which  we  can  draw  for  a  knowledge  of 
that  age,  we  can  only  dimly  picture  to  ourselves 
a  state  of  things  in  which  men,  not  of  genius,  but 
without  any  mental  or  moral  qualifications  what- 
ever, saw  in  Parliament  a  perfect  Eldorado  and 
a  prospect  of  sinecures  comparing  favourably  even 
with  "the  fat  slumbers  of  the  Church."  These 
recompenses  were  not,  indeed,  for  all ;  though 
there  was,  as  Lord  Melbourne  once  said  of  a  still 

prized  distinction,  "  no  d d  nonsense  of  merit " 

about  them.  They  were  the  admitted  perquisites 
of  the  great  families  and  cei-tain  widely  ramifying 
connections  of  political  influence,  and  of  the 
swarm  of  hirelings  and  clever  men  of  prostituted 


2o8  CHATHAM 

talents  whom  these  carried  along  with  them  upon 
the  golden  tide  of  opportunity.  Chatham  stood 
outside  this  circle,  large  as  it  was.  Friends  and 
foes  alike  recognised  that  he  drew  his  strength 
from  the  popular  support  which  his  own  ability 
and  eloquence  gave  him,  and  most  of  the  great 
Whigs  regarded  him  with  imconcealed  suspicion 
as  an  intruder. 

It  was  not  merely  that  he  did  not  possess 
political  influence  of  the  customary  kind,  but 
that  it  and  its  objects  had  no  attractions  for  him. 
This  was  his  second  disability — that  he  was 
incorruptible.  His  refusal  to  pilfer  public  money 
had,  no  doubt,  as  has  been  already  acknowledged, 
an  element  of  ostentation  in  its  publicity ;  but 
this  ought  not  to  disguise  from  us  its  importance. 
It  would  seem  nowadays  such  a  very  tepid  form 
of  virtue  merely  to  abstain  from  acquisitions  like 
those  which  Chatham  refused  on  becoming  Pay- 
master of  the  Forces  that  there  is  some  danger  of 
our  failing  to  remember  that  it  was  not  always 
so.  Chatham's  integrity  was  not  a  mere  appeal 
to  the  gallery.  It  was  the  outward  and  visible 
sign  of  that  moral  fire  and  warmth  of  soul  within 
him  which  made  his  advent  to  power  so  supremely 
significant  in  English  political  history.  Without 
doubt,  his  whole  being  recoiled  from  the  sordid 
immorality,  the  torpor,  the  helplessness  which 
the  Walpolean  era,  despite  its  solid  benefits  to 


CHARACTERISTICS  209 

the  nation,  left  behind  it  as  its  legacy  to 
Parliament.  He  brought  an  inspiration  into 
politics,  and  in  the  darkest  days  since  we  have 
never  wholly  lost  it. 

However  much  Walpole  might  sneer  and  place- 
men smile,  it  must  have  been  evident  to  impartial 
observers  that  it  was  this  note  of  sincerity  and 
passion  which  gave  Chatham's  eloquence  its 
singular  power,  and  that  it  was  in  virtue  of  this 
quality  that  he  would  leave  his  mark  on  history. 
We  recognise  it  now ;  and  indeed  without  this 
key  his  career  would  remain  wholly  imexplainable. 
But  the  critics  of  his  early  speeches  had  this 
much  of  truth  upon  their  side,  that  in  Chatham's 
first  utterances  ambition  and  moral  indignation 
were  both  struggling  to  find  expression,  and  that 
his  desire  to  attain  power  was  not  less  apparent 
than  his  desire  to  oust  from  it  incompetent  and 
apathetic  politicians.  He  meant  every  word  he 
said,  but  he  knew  quite  as  well  as  his  hearers 
that  the  condition  precedent  to  reform  was  that 
he  should  himself  attain  a  sufficiently  powerful 
position  to  be  able  to  undertake  it.  In  this 
sense,  then,  ambition  was  in  early  years  his 
dominating  motive.  But  so  it  has  been  with  all 
great  men  who  have  a  task  before  them — from 
Caesar  onwards. 

The  fact,  however,  that  he  was  a  young 
politician  with  a  career  to  make  was  not  lost 
14 


2IO  CHATHAM 

upon  his  adversaries,  and  when  he  took  office  in 
a  Government  dominated  by  the  chosen  heirs  of 
Walpole,  and  defended  measures  which  when  in 
opposition  he  had  attacked,  they  did  not  fail  to 
make  use  of  their  telling  opportunity.  Pitt's  cool 
defence  of  his  changed  attitude  took  their  breath 
away,  and  seems  still  to  be  a  stumbling-block  to 
many.  The  truth  is,  probably,  that  he  had 
previously  fixed  his  eyes  entirely  on  the  attain- 
ment of  office,  and  had  not  counted  on  the  diffi- 
culties of  his  position  when  he  should  actually 
secure  it.  Having  attained  it,  he  found  that 
office  and  power  are  far  from  being  synonymous, 
that  the  failings  of  Government  take  on  a  more 
explicable  aspect  when  viewed  from  within,  that 
a  period  of  political  apprenticeship  is  necessary 
before  a  man  can  command  the  confidence  of 
Parliament, — with  which,  as  a  Minister,  he  has, 
after  all,  to  work,  —  and  that  the  whole  con- 
temporary regime  is  not  to  be  changed  in  a  day. 

More  perplexing  to  those  who  watched  him 
than  either  his  integrity  or  his  political  incon- 
sistencies was  the  artificiaUty  and  elaboration, 
which  seemed  to  be  not  simply  an  eccentricity  of 
manner,  but  to  strike  deep  down  to  the  very  base 
of  his  character.  Did  it  actually  do  so,  or  was  it 
no  more  than  a  mask  which  the  wearer  could  put 
on  or  off  at  will  ?  In  part  this  "  theatrical  stuffing 
and  raised  heels,"  as  Burke  contemptuously  called 


CHARACTERISTICS  2H 

it,  was  the  natural  product  of  the  time.  The 
prevailing  conception  of  the  eighteenth  century 
as  the  period  par  excellence  of  formality  and  mode 
is  too  widely  attested  to  be  seriously  untrue.  It 
is  possible  that,  in  our  retrospect  of  it,  our 
eyes  have  been  fixed  too  exclusively  on  its 
manners  and  its  literature,  and  we  have  been  in 
danger  of  forgetting  that  it  produced  its  comple- 
ment, and  more  than  its  complement,  of  great 
men  of  action,  "masculine  from  head  to  heel." 
But,  after  all,  it  is  to  the  social  and  intellectual 
habits  of  an  age  that  one  must  look  to  appreciate 
its  ruling  motives,  and  a  judgment  all  but  unani- 
mous has  pronounced  the  eighteenth  -  century 
world,  charming  as  it  was,  to  have  been  an  artificial 
society.  No  man  can  free  himself  entirely  from 
the  influences  that  environ  him,  and  Chatham 
was  in  many  respects  the  child  of  his  time.  He 
speaks  with  all  the  eighteenth  -  century  horror 
of  "enthusiasm,"  as  though  unconscious  of  the 
measure  in  which  he  himself  really  possessed  it ; 
and  his  intellectual  equipment  was  that  of  his 
age.  And  besides  this  he  delighted  in  the 
courtly  formality  of  the  life  around  him,  himself 
preserving,  as  we  know  from  contemporary 
witness,  all  the  manners  of  the  vieille  cour. 

But  this  was  by  no  means  all.  Though  he  had 
all  the  qualifications  to  shine  in  the  formal  world 
of  society  about  him,  it  was  felt  that  he  preferred 


ai2  CHATHAM 

to  dazzle  and  astonish  it  by  carrying  formality 
almost  to  the  length  of  a  caricature.  His  elabora- 
tion of  manner,  passing  now  into  an  almost 
intolerable  arrogance  and  hauteur,  and  now  into 
a  hardly  less  terrifying  self-abasement,  surprised 
everybody  and  sowed  broadcast  occasions  of 
offence.  This  curious  pose  was  partly  the  result 
of  pride — the  pride  of  a  great  man  among  medi- 
ocrities who  did  not  understand  him,  and  of  a 
political  adventm-er  who  in  the  teeth  of  great 
obstacles  had  mounted  to  the  highest  place. 
There  is  a  vein  in  his  character  that  reminds  us 
involuntarily  of  the  sardonic  genius  of  Swift ;  he 
felt  something  of  the  same  contemptuous  bitter- 
ness for  weakness,  triviality,  and  error ;  and  among 
the  great  Englishmen  of  the  eighteenth  century 
Chatham  and  Swift  are  those  who  stood  most 
conspicuously  alone.  Very  likely,  also,  he  made 
his  mysterious  aloofness  into  a  system  largely  as  a 
measure  of  self-defence.  Child  of  his  age  as  he 
was,  he  had  cut  himself  off  deliberately  from  some 
of  the  most  characteristic  developments  of  the 
society  about  him.  He  had  none  of  the  pleasant 
vices  which  absorbed  so  much  of  its  time  and  its 
attention.  In  politics  he  took  an  unusual  course, 
which  drew  still  more  definitely  the  line  of 
demarcation  separating  him  from  his  fellows. 
As  time  went  on,  his  position  became  still 
more   lonely.     This    deepened    his   reserve    and 


CHARACTERISTICS  213 

stiffened  his  manner  into  a  kind  of  social  coat  of 
mail. 

But  neither  the  influence  of  the  age  nor  the 
exigencies  of  his  position  are  by  themselves 
sufficient  to  account  for  an  attitude  that  was  not 
merely  formal,  but  full  of  studied  and  dramatic 
effect.  The  primal  cause  lay  deeper  in  the 
character  of  Chatham.  He  was  a  convinced 
believer  in  outward  as  well  as  inward  greatness. 
He  reproduces  for  us,  with  a  strange  verisimilitude 
in  some  features,  Aristotle's  immortal  portrait  of 
the  man  of  lofty  spirit.  His  view,  whether  he 
formulated  it  to  himself  like  a  philosopher  or 
not,  was  that  a  great  personality  must  have  its 
appropriate  setting.  Hence  he  lived  habitually 
in  the  grand  manner.  Though  the  age  of  Louis 
xrv.  and  the  eighteenth  century  furnish  some 
similar  examples,  there  is  none  in  which  the 
adoption  of  the  grand  manner  as  a  rule  of  life 
took  quite  the  same  shape  as  it  did  in  the  case  of 
Chatham.  He  carried  it  into  every  public  and 
private  transaction  in  which  he  engaged,  and, 
uniquely  impressive  as  it  often  was,  there  were 
other  occasions  on  which  the  combination  of 
popular  statesmanship  with  studied  pomp  pro- 
duced results  so  incongruous  that  nothing  but 
his  unequalled  histrionic  faculty  and  knowledge 
of  effect  saved  them  from  absurdity.  We  have 
heard  already  of  his  immense   retinue  and  his 


214  CHATHAM 

theatrical  appearances  in  Parliament.  In  the 
private  business  of  politics  it  was  the  same.  "  1 
never  found  him,"  said  Shelburne,  "  when  I  have 
gone  to  him,  which  was  always  by  appointment, 
with  so  much  as  a  book  before  him,  but  always 
sitting  alone  in  a  drawing-room  waiting  the  hour 
of  appointment,  and  in  the  country  with  his  hat 
and  stick  in  his  hand."  The  admission  which 
he  made  to  the  same  statesman  in  one  of  his 
illuminating  asides,  that  independently  of  his 
health  and  circumstances  he  should,  for  reasons  of 
policy,  always  have  lived  as  he  did,  a  few  miles 
out  of  town,  shows  plainly  that  he  deliberately 
counted  upon  producing  an  impression  by  sur- 
rounding himself  with  an  atmosphere  of  mystery. 
He  was,  Shelburne  said,  ''constantly  upon  the 
watch,  and  never  unbent."  ^  These  last  words, 
corroborated  by  everything  we  know  of  Chatham, 
are  extremely  significant.  They  explain  not  only 
the  artificial  exterior  which  was,  in  timth,  a 
second  nature  to  him,  but  much  of  the  unac- 
commodating arrogance  with  which  he  treated  his 
political  colleagues.  His  natural  imperiousness 
was  accentuated  by  the  continually  high  tension 
at  which  he  lived.  Self-centred,  he  wandered  in 
a  world  of  his  own  imagination,  and  did  not 
trouble  to  gauge  the  characters  of  his  fellow- 
statesmen,  whom  he  too  often  regarded  as  mere 
^  Fitztnaurice's  Shelburne,  i.  77,  78. 


LORD   CHATHAM 
If'ax  Ejffigy  in  WesUninster  Abbey 


CHARACTERISTICS  215 

lumber  on  the  political  stage.  We  see  the  results 
in  his  refusal  to  act  with  the  RockinghamSj  in  the 
formation  of  his  Ministry  of  1766,  and  in  his 
blindly  impolitic  conduct  towards  the  Whigs 
within  it. 

In  some  such  sense  as  this  it  is  true  to  say,  as 
has  been  said  by  Carlyle,  that  Chatham  "lived 
the  strangest  mimetic  life  all  along."  But  this 
mimetic  element  was  the  product  of  an  intense 
self-consciousness  rather  than  of  a  shallow  in- 
sincerity. Chatham  modelled  his  own  life  on  the 
lives  of  "  Plutarch's  men  "  ;  and  if  this  imitation, 
translated  into  the  modes  of  thought  and  action 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  produced  results  that 
were  often  extravagant  and  regrettable,  it  must 
not  be  forgotten  that  it  helped  him  to  keep 
steadily  before  himself  a  high  and  generous  ideal, 
and  that  England's  debt  to  him  for  having  done 
this  is  great.  For  we  cannot  separate  the  several 
parts  of  his  temperament  and  say  that  without 
such  and  such  a  characteristic  he  would  have 
effected  more.  A  simpler  and  greater  character 
may  easily  be  imagined,  but  it  would  not  have 
been  Chatham.  The  spectacular  point  of  view 
from  which  he  regarded  all  human  conduct,  his 
own  included,  was  an  inseparable  part  of  his 
peculiar  genius.  We  may  wish  that  the  latter 
had  taken  another  form,  but  we  can  hardly  deny 
that   it   is   traceable   throughout   all   his  career. 


3i6  CHATHAM 

inspiring  both  his  great  actions  and  those  which 
we  regard  as  incongruous  and  misplaced. 

His  oratory  confirms  this  impression.  It  passes, 
just  as  his  actions  did,  not  infrequently  into  florid 
and  flamboyant  expression,  from  which  a  purer 
taste  would  have  preserved  him.  In  these  cases 
a  superb  gesture  and  delivery,  pronounced  com- 
parable only  to  those  of  Garrick,  enabled  him  to 
take  liberties  which  would  have  made  other 
orators  seem  absurd.  "  His  tones,"  said  Grattan, 
"  were  remarkably  pleasing ;  I  recollect  his 
pronouncing  one  word, '  effete,'  in  a  soft  charming 
accent."  But  much  the  most  remarkable  charac- 
teristic of  his  speaking  was  its  union  of  dramatic 
power  with  a  striking  moral  ascendency  ;  and  this 
was  the  salient  characteristic  in  his  life  as  well  as 
in  his  oratory.  Humour,  close  argument,  and 
elaborate  statement  were  not  points  in  which  his 
eloquence  excelled.  But  in  sheer  enthralling 
power  it  has  probably  never  been  surpassed  by 
any  oratory  in  the  language.  "  He  lightened 
upon  his  subject,"  said  Grattan  again,  "and 
reached  the  point  by  the  flashings  of  his  mind, 
which  were  felt  but  could  not  be  followed." 
Charming  all  listeners  by  his  brilliant  conver- 
sational ease  in  ordinary  moments,  he  held  them 
spellbound  when  on  a  great  occasion  he  rose  to 
the  very  summit  of  imaginative  art.  Though  of 
all  eloquence  his  must  lose  most  by  being  read 


CHARACTERISTICS  217 

merely  as  the  written  word,  and  though  what  we 
have  left  of  it  is  only  fragmentary,  we  can  still 
call  up  in  some  degree  the  effect  produced  by  his 
great  surviving  apostrophes.  His  appeal  to  the 
House  of  Commons  after  the  Peace  of  Paris  to 
forget  everything  for  the  public ;  the  speech  on 
the  Constitution  in  the  House  of  Lords,  in  which 
he  contrasted  the  silken  barons  of  to-day  with 
the  iron  barons  of  old ;  his  great  American 
speeches  in  both  Houses;  and  the  gorgeous 
rhetoric  of  his  reply  to  Lord  Suffolk  when  the 
latter  had  defended  the  employment  of  Indians 
in  the  war,  must,  when  enhanced  by  the  moral 
weight  and  magical  delivery  of  the  speaker,  have 
been  among  the  greatest  moments  of  declamation 
which  Parliament  has  ever  known.  Effective 
above  all  were  the  phrases  and  sentences  of 
inspired  epigram,  eminently  modern  in  character, 
in  reading  which  it  seems  as  though  the  spirit 
of  Gladstone  had  been  breathed  into  the  barbed 
and  polished  periods  of  Disraeli. 

There  is,  however,  a  certain  air  of  unreality  in 
viewing  Chatham's  oratory  from  a  purely  literary 
point  of  view.  For  he  never  used  it  except  as  an 
instrument,  and  he  was  a  man  of  action  above  all. 
It  was  a  supreme  boon  that  gave  him  to  England 
at  the  most  epoch-making  moment  in  her  history 
as  a  great  Power  since  the  Elizabethan  wars.  The 
history  of  Ministries  records  no  change  so  sudden 


ai8  CHATHAM 

and  so  startling  as  that  produced  by  his  accession 
to  leadership  at  the  beginning  of  the  Seven  Years' 
War.  Centralising  the  administration  in  his  own 
hands,  and  working  its  almost  disused  machinery 
with  extraordinary  vigour,  drawing  from  his  chief 
naval  and  military  subordinates  a  fuller  measure 
of  devotion  than  has  ever  been  yielded  to  any 
other  Minister,  kindling  to  white  heat  the  ardour 
of  every  soldier  and  sailor  in  the  services  and  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  people,  he  produced  results 
which  were  felt  all  over  the  world  and  changed 
the  face  of  history.  What  the  fate  of  the  country 
would  have  been  if  Chatham  had  not  been  there 
to  take  the  helm,  one  does  not  care  to  think.  It 
is  true  that,  as  his  son  said  in  the  shortest  and 
greatest  of  his  speeches,  England  is  not  to  be 
saved  by  any  single  man.  Without  him  she 
would  have  survived  the  struggle,  but  she  might 
have  done  no  more  than  barely  survive  it.  To 
Chatham  belongs  of  right  the  old  Roman  boast 
that  he  carried  forward  the  confines  of  the 
Empire,  and,  in  the  light  of  the  events  which 
followed  the  Seven  Years'  War,  he  appears  hardly 
less  as  one  who  strove  to  consolidate  it  than  as  its 
extender. 

He  lived  to  see  his  work  of  Imperial  consolida- 
tion at  least  partially  undone  by  one  of  the 
greatest  revolutions  of  all  time.  His  last  years 
were   spent   in   a   splendid    effort    to   avert   the 


CHARACTERISTICS  219 

dismemberment  of  the  Empire,  and  the  separation 
of  the  two  great  English-speaking  communities 
of  the  globe.  It  was  miavailing,  but  yet  we 
cannot  say  that  Chatham's  endeavours  were 
altogether  thrown  away.  Without  his  American 
speeches,  we  should  have  been  deprived  of  some 
pages  of  political  wisdom  to  which  it  will  never 
be  unprofitable  to  recur.  If  in  his  War  Ministry 
he  showed  the  way  to  win  an  empire,  in  this 
last  oratorical  campaign  he  showed  how  to  keep 
one  that  was  won.  The  whole  duty  of  Imperial 
patriotism  is  set  forth  in  these  speeches,  which, 
with  Burke's,  are  a  kind  of  charter  of  the  consti- 
tutional rights  and  privileges  of  the  members  of 
our  colonial  empire. 

Chatham's  influence  on  the  internal  develop- 
ment of  England,  though  less  tangible,  was  none 
the  less  real.  Although  he  left  no  great  measure 
on  the  Statute  Book,  his  career  forms  a  landmark 
in  English  political  history.  There  had  been 
statesmen  before  him  who  maintained  the  privi- 
leges of  Parliament  against  the  encroachment  of 
the  Crown ;  it  was  Chatham's  part  to  maintain 
the  constitutional  rights  of  the  people  against  an 
autocratic  Parliament.  From  the  first  he  was  the 
chosen  representative  of  the  still  scarcely  articu- 
late democracy.  They  made  his  rise  to  power 
possible,  and  in  return  he  never  forgot  the  quarter 
from  which  he  drew  his  strength.     His  conscious- 


220  CHATHAM 

ness  that  he  had  the  people  at  his  back  no  doubt 
contributed  something  to  the  contemptuous  dis- 
dain with  which  he  watched  the  movements  of 
the  warring  elements  in  Parliamentary  life,  and 
may  even  explain  to  some  extent  his  reluctance, 
so  disastrous  in  the  history  of  the  Rockingham 
Ministry,  to  bind  himself  by  any  party  tie.  His 
greatest  period  as  a  popular  statesman  was  un- 
questionably that  when  he  threw  off  his  long 
illness  in  1769  and  returned  to  politics  with  a 
clearer  vision  and  a  kindlier  heart,  prepared  to 
sacrifice  at  the  eleventh  hour  his  dearest  beliefs 
about  the  inefficacy  of  party  if  only  by  so  doing 
he  could  give  effect  to  the  nation's  will.  But,  so 
far  as  his  relations  with  the  mass  of  the  people 
were  concerned,  his  career  was  a  salutary  one 
throughout.  They  were  far  enough  off  to  see 
only  his  great  qualities  undimmed  by  their  im- 
perfections. Whether  the  endeavours  of  his  last 
years  may  be  held  to  outweigh  his  political  blind- 
ness in  1765-66  is  an  open  question.  English- 
men would  gladly  remodel  the  latter  period,  but 
Chatham,  with  his  imperfections  and  his  strength, 
his  lack  of  self-knowledge  and  his  magnetism  of 
the  people,  must  be  taken  as  a  whole. 

His  hold  upon  the  people  was  due  to  his 
unfaltering  patriotism  and  love  of  liberty.  The 
former  was  not  that  tepid  emotion  which  often 
masquerades  under  the  name,  but  a  passion  which 


CHARACTERISTICS  221 

filled  his  entire  being.  His  imagination  set  no 
bounds  to  the  grandeur  of  England,  and  under 
his  guidance  her  capacities  were  drawn  out  to  the 
full.  His  love  of  liberty  was  the  generous  com- 
plement of  that  lofty  ambition,  and  enabled  him 
not  only  to  do  great  things  in  his  generation,  but 
to  leave  a  permanently  inspiring  example.  In 
his  enthusiastic  devotion  to  the  interests  of  the 
Colonies  and  the  whole  Empire,  and  in  his  strenu- 
ous championship  of  freedom  and  progress  at 
home,  he  anticipates  the  fundamental  principles 
which  are  the  basis  of  the  wider  Britain  of  to-day. 


INDEX 


Abercrombie,  General,  65-67. 
Addington,  Dr.,  193. 
Aix-la-Chapelle,  Treaty  of,  35, 
Albemarle,  Lord,  117,  118. 
Amherst,  General,  65,  70,  75. 
Anson,  Admiral  Lord,  zo,  61,  177. 

Barr^,  Colonel,  135,  170,  102. 

Beckford,  Lord  Mayor,  91,  144,  146,  166. 

Bedford,  Duke  of,  94,  95,  102,  118,  145. 

Black  Hole  of  Calcutta,  55. 

Bollngbroke,  Lord,  13. 

Boscawen,  Admiral,  50,  66,  72,  117. 

Boston  Tea-party,  the,  182. 

Braddock,  General,  49. 

Breslau,  Peace  of,  25. 

Burke,  90,  1x9,  121,  136,  148,   156,  181,  191,  192,  202-204. 

Burton  Pynsent,  44,  116,  117. 

Bute,  Lord,  81,  91,  94,  95,  97,  98,  loi,  105,  107-109. 

Byng,  Admiral,  55,  59. 

Camden,  Lord,  104,  127,  135,  151,  161,  162,  165,  202. 

Carteret,  afterwards  Earl  Granville,  9,  24-30,  33,  34,  177. 

Charles  vi..  Emperor,  21. 

Chatham,  Lady,  44,  151,  186,  187,  189,  202. 

Chesterfield,  Lord,  9,  25,  33,  60. 

Choiseul,  84,  85-87,  138. 

Clive,  Lord,  47,  141. 

Cobham,  Lord,  11,  14. 

Conflans,  72. 

Conway,  63,  119,  124,  134,  135,  146. 

Coote,  Sir  Eyre,  76. 

333 


224  INDEX 

Cowper,  quoted,  117. 

Crosby,  Lord  Mayor,  168,  169. 

Cumberland,  Duke  of,  60,  62,  64,  106,  117. 

Dashwood,  Sir  Francis,  loi. 
Daun,  62,  69. 

Devonshire,  Duke  of,  56,  61,  99. 
Dupleix,  47. 

Edgcumbe,  Lord,  145,  146. 
Essay  on  Woman,  109,  158. 

Family  Compacts,  the,  18,  86,  138. 

Ferdinand,  Prince,  64,  68,  74,  76,  79. 

Forbes,  Brigadier,  66,  68. 

Forde,  Colonel,  73,  74. 

Fort  Duquesne,  49,  68,  74. 

Fort  William  Henry,  63. 

Forty-five,  the,  33. 

Fox,  Henry,  Lord  Holland,  3,  39-4*,  44-46,  56,  61,  89,  98, 

99,  lOI. 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  115,  159,  180,  187,  192,    194. 
Frederick,  Prince  of  Wales,  12-14,  23. 
Frederick  n..  King  of  Prussia,  21,  25,  51,  59,  61,  62,  64,  69, 

74.  79>96.  loi,  139. 

George  n.,  13,  22,  25,  29,  33,  39,  43,  50,  56,  59,  60,  80,  134. 
George  ra.,  81,  82,  88,  90,  91,  99,   102,  104-108,  117,  118, 

121,  123,  124,  131,  133,  152,  157,  158,  166,  167,  179, 

182,  199,  200. 
Gower,  Lord,  145. 
Grafton,  Duke  of,  99,  119,    122,   124,  134,   135,  147,  152, 

158,  i6i,  167,  179. 
Granby,  117,  161,  165. 
Grenville,  Lady  Hester.     See  Lady  Chatham 
Grenville,  George,  11,  42,   53,  56,  96,  98,   102,   105,   107, 

110,  114,  115,  118,  124,   127,   128,   133,   143,  144,  157, 

166. 
Grenville,  Richard.     See  Lord  Temple. 

Halifax,  Lord,  102,  105. 

Hampstead,  143,  150,  152. 

Hardwicke,  Lord  Chancellor,  24,  41,  43,  93. 


INDEX  225 

Havannah,  92,  97. 

Hawke,  Admiral  Sir  Edward,  50,  63,  66,  72,  146. 

Hayes,  44,  115,  150,   151. 

Hoiderness,  Lord,  82,  89. 

Howe,  Lord,  65,  67. 

Hutchinson,  120,  180. 

I 
Jenkins's  Ear,  17. 
Johnson,  Dr.,  20. 

Kaunitz,  52. 

Kiosterseven,  Convention  of,  62. 

Lally,  73,  76. 

Legge,  Henry,  42,  53,  56,  60.  61,  82. 
Lennox,  Lady  Sarah,  89. 
Lexington,  battle  of,  192. 
Louisburg,  capture  of,  66. 
Luttrell,  Colonel,  160,  168. 
Lyttelton,  Sir  George,  11,  14,  41,  42. 

Manilla,  93,  96. 

Mansfield,  Lord  (Murray),  31,  39,  56,  144,  159,  162,  163, 

199. 
Maria  Theresa,  21,  24,  51.  ; 

Marlborough,  Sarah,  Duchess  of,  32.  ' 

Martinique,  92,  97. 
Masulipatam,  storming  of,  73,  74. 
Middlesex  Election,  the,  158-160. 
Minden,  battle  of,  74. 
Minorca,  53,  59,  97. 
Mitchell  (Ambassador  at  Berlin),  139, 
Montcalm,  62,  67. 
Montreal,  fall  of,  75. 

Newcastle,  Duke  of,  24,  39,  40,  42,  44,  45,  50,  53,  55-57, 

60,  61,  81,  83,  93,  94,  99,  106,  107,  119,  122. 
North,  Lord,  4,  134,  149,  161,  167,  179,  198,  199. 
North  Briton,  the,  102,  103,  108,  158. 
Northington,  Lord,  133-135. 

Oswego,  loss  of,  55,  62. 
15 


226  INDEX 

Paris,  Peace  of,  95-101. 

Pelham,  Henry,  24,  26,  27,  29,  33,  34,  37-39,  4t. 

Pitt,  Governor,  i,  2. 

Pitt,  Robert,  2. 

Pitt,  William,  Earl  of  Chatham,  birth  and  parentage,  j-2 ; 
at  Eton,  3,  4;  at  Oxford,  4-6  ;  in  the  army,  6  ;  enters 
House  of  Commons,  6  ;  joins  the  Cobham  party,  10,  11  ; 
dismissed  from  the  army,  13;  in  the  Prince  of  Wales' 
household,  13,  14;  Pitt  and  the  Spanish  War,  20  ;  Pitt 
and  Walpole,  22,  23  ;  attacks  Carteret,  25,  26  ;  supports 
the  Pelhams,  27  ;  Pitt  and  Carteret  contrasted,  28-30 ; 
legacy  from  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough,  32  ;  Paymaster 
of  the  Forces,  34,  35  ;  Pitt  and  the  leadership  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  39-41  ;  marries  Lady  Hester 
Grenville,  44;  union  with  Fox,  44,  45;  connection 
with  Leicester  House,  46,  47  ;  dismissed  from  office, 
53;  Secretary  of  State  under  the  Duke  of  Devonshire, 
56;  Pitt  and  the  army,  57,  58;  dismissed  from  office, 
60;  the  Newcastle  -  Pitt  Ministry,  60,  61;  Pitt's  war 
policy,  63-75  ;  l''*  qualities  as  War  Minister  discussed, 
76-80;  negotiations  with  Choiseul,  84-86;  the  "ad- 
vice to  the  King,"  87;  resignation,  87;  pension,  and 
peerage  for  his  wife,  89 ;  at  the  Guildhall,  90,  91  ; 
speech  on  the  Peace,  100,  loi  ;  overtures  from  the 
King  and  Bute,  106-108  ;  Pitt  on  the  Wilkes  case, 
109,  no;  receives  two  legacies,  116;  life  at  Burton 
Pynsent,  116,  117;  negotiations  with  Cumberland  and 
Albemarle,  117,  118;  attitude  towards  the  Rock- 
Inghams,  1 21-124;  speeches  on  the  Stamp  Act,  125- 
130;  fresh  negotiations  with  the  Rockinghams,  132, 
133  ;  forms  a  Ministry,  134;  created  Earl  of  Chatham, 
136;  foreign  policy,  137-140;  Indian  policy,  140-143; 
weakened  position  of  the  Ministry,  144-147  ;  visit  to 
Bath,  147;  illness  and  seclusion,  149-153;  return  to 
politics,  154;  reconciliation  with  the  Rockinghams, 
156;  with  the  Grenvilles,  157;  audience  of  the  King, 
157;  speech  on  the  Constitutional  question,  163-165; 
speeches  on  Parliamentary  reform,  170-175  ;  on  the 
Falkland  Islands  dispute,  176  ;  views  on  the  American 
policy  of  the  Government,  183,  184;  on  the  Philadel- 
phia Congress,  185  ;  moves  for  withdrawal  of  troops 
from  Boston,  186-189;  proposals  for  a  settlement,  190- 
192  ;  illness,  192;  declaration  to  Dr.  Addington,  193  ; 


INDEX  227 

moves  for  cessation  of  hostilities,  195-197;  denounces 
employment  of  Indians,  196,  197  ;  Chatham  and  the 
King,  199,  200;  last  speech,  200,  201;  death,  202; 
criticisms  of  Chatham,  203-205  ;  his  rise  to  power 
discussed,  206-210  ;  his  character,  210-215  ;  his  oratory, 
216,  217  ;  importance  as  an  Imperial  statesman,  218, 
219  ;  as  a  domestic  statesman,  219,  220. 

Pitt,  the  younger,  5,  75,  187,  189,  195,  200,  202. 

Plassey,  battle  of,  65. 

Pondicherry,  fall  of,  76. 

Pragmatic  Sanction,  the,  21. 

Pulteney,  afterwards  Lord  Bath,  8,  9,  12,  13,  23,  24,  26, 
33-35- 

Quebec,  battle  of,  71. 
Quiberon,  battle  of,  72. 

Richmond,  Duke  of,  146,  200-202. 
Robinson,  Sir  Thomas,  40,  45. 
Rochefort,  expedition  against,  63. 

Rockingham,  Lord,  99,  119,  124,  125,  131,  133,  156,  157, 
202,  203. 

Sandwich,  Lord,  102,  108. 

Saratoga,  197. 

Savile,  Sir  George,  156,  202. 

Senegal,  capture  of,  69. 

Shelburne,  Lord,  i,  3,  9,  44,   135,   141,   142,   152,  172,  183, 

214. 
Shippen. 10. 

Stamp  Act,  the,  115,  120,  121,  124-131. 
Stanley,  Hans,  84,  86,  87,  138,  139. 
Suffolk,  Lord,  197,  217. 

Temple,  Lord,  11,  42,  53,  54,  56,  59,  61,  87,  91,  105,  118, 

13s.  157- 
Thomson,  quoted,  14. 
Ticonderoga,  66,  67,  71. 

Townshend,  Charles,  119,  135,  141,  147-149,  153,  179- 
Turgot,  194. 

Utrecht,  Treaty  of,  17,  63,  116. 


228  INDEX 

Vergennes,  193-195. 
Versailles,  Treaty  of,  52. 

Walpole,  Horace,  the  elder,  20. 

Walpole,  Horace,  the  younger,  34,  38,  60,  89,  93,  100,  137, 

167. 
Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  6-8,  13,  17,  19,  22,  24,  35,  81,  208- 

209. 
Walpole,  Thomas,  150,  151. 
Wandewash,  battle  of,  76. 
Wedderburn,  143,  180. 
Westminster,  Treaty  of,  51. 
Weymouth,  Lord,  159. 

Wilkes,  John,  102-105,  108,  no,  158-161,167-169. 
Williams,  Hanbury,  51. 
Wolfe,  General,  63-66,  71,  72. 
Worms,  Treaty  of,  25. 
Wyndham,  Sir  William,  10,  35. 


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